I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 

# ^ 6 7 ^ ^ 

^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



POEMS. 



BY 



J. G. BRINCKLE. 



^{ OF Co^^ 




\;, -./H-ai 



v^ 



PHILADELPPIIA: 
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

819 AND 821 Market Street. 
1872. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

J G. BRINCKLE, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Colling, Printer. 



CONTENTS 





PAGE 


To THE Constellation Lyra 


13 


Death in the House . 


18 


A November Dream 


20 


Dissevered . 


. 28 


To A Butterfly .... 


. 30 


The Last Meeting 


. 32 


An Episode 


. 34 


A Threnody .... 


. . 38 


Philosophic Reveries . 


' 39 


The Meeting .... 


. 43 


The Ball 


. 47 


The Dream after the Ball . 


. 50 


Sunrise ..... 


. 54 



57 



iv CONTENTS. 

Transformed . . . . . 

A Night at Sea 60 

Palinode ....... 61 

The Rose and the Tomb . . . -67 

A May Night at Nice dZ 

From Nice to Savona . . . . -71 

A Sunday in Rome . , . . -77 
Palgrave Countess Jutta .... 84 

Mount Cenis ...... 85 

An Alpine Dream ..... 90 

Song from the Servian . , . -99 
Les Bords du Rhone ..... loi 

At Supper after the Bal Masqu^ . -103 
Antigone of Sophocles . . . .109 





PROEM. 



TO THE CONSTELLATION LYRA. 



s 



TAR-MARKED outline traced in the midnight 
arch of the heavens — 
Hail, bright emblem of song, shedding a magical 
light 
Over autmnnal fields whose culms are encrusted with 
frost-burs. 
While in the forest the wind chaunts invocations to 
thee ! 



Near to the Lyre the Swan in the heavens is grace- 
fully floating, 
Cepheus, royally crowned, rests on the glimmering 
pole, 
Cassiopeia sits on her throne in her sumptuous beauty, 
Nebulous clusters of stars fade in abysses of space. 

2 13 



14 TO THE CONSTELLATION LYRA. 

Upward I gaze on the outspread splendors of night, 
till in fancy, 
Dimly Erato I see, touching the luminous chords; 
Ardors poetic diffused in the soul by a subtle en- 
trancement, 
Quicken the sight to behold wonders occult in the 
earth. 

Semblances faint of the unseen blend with the forms 
that surround us, 
Like the cerulean hues tinging to azure the deep. 
And as terrestrial beauty reflects but the beauty 
supernal. 
Thus does the Lyre divine kindle the fervors of 
song. 

Oft have we marveled at mystical tracings on trees 
and in flowers. 
Thou canst their meanings unfold. Aid us to read 
them aright. 
Teach us the sense of the miniature fronds and fairy- 
like wine-cups 
Set in a border of moss. What would the lichens 
narrate ? 



TO THE CONSTELLATION LYRA. 15 

Disk over disk upon time-worn tablet and blackening 
head-stone, 
(Each with its pale green frill,) slowly but surely 
they spread. 
Would they in irony blur the inscriptions unheeded 
of sorrow? 
Would they indite m their place legends of truer 
import? 

Teach us a song of the loves of the flower, — her 
amorous languors ; 
Sing of her blushes and youth, merged in matu- 
rity's pride. 
What is the lay that the bee tunes low on his lute to 
the blossom — 
Stealing her sweetness the while? Say, if her per- 
fume 's a soul? 

Who has not gazed on the Helianth, turning to fol- 
low the Sun-god ? 
Paeans perchance we would hear, had he a voice 
for our sense. 

Who has considered the Lily of Night her beauty 
disrobing — 



1 6 TO THE CONSTELLATION LYRA. 

Pale as the goddess she loves? Is she a Nymph 
of the moon? 

Language is fraught, to thy votary's ear, with a poesy 
subtle. 
Aught of its innermost sense, ears of the dull can- 
not know. 
AVhat if the tremulous air should reveal the accents 
that ever 
Widen in circles and spread e'en to the uttermost 
poles? 

As on a motionless pool the insect glides in the sun- 
light. 
Pausing to mirror her eyes in -the reflection be- 
neath. 
There she beholds in its depths a mysterious world 
with its wonders — 
Life with its passions is there — countless and strange 
in its forms. 

Thus couldst thou teach us the poem of Earth and 
her wondrous transitions — 
Thou who hast seen her a Sun, flaming in atomless 
space — 



TO TIJE CONSTELLATION LYRA. 17 

Thou who hast gazed on the monsters that roamed 
in her forests primeval — 
Models misshapen and gross, fashioned by Nature 
in sport. 

Thou, in the heavens of space beholdest the mystical 
star-dance ; 
Systems in harmony glide ; Planets recede and 
return. 
Past thee the film-like comets with tresses dishevelled 
are speeding : 
Tell me, thou Harp of the skies — tell me who 
orders the dance? 




DEATH IK THE HOUSE. 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 

'nr^HE orchard blossoms of pink and of white in 
the breezes of April are drifting; 
The delicate flesh-like cones of the larch are red- 
dening under the boughs ; 
From flower to flower with zigzag flight the hurrying 
bees are shifting, 
The sunshine is bright and the air is serene — 
who'd think there was death in the house? 

I stand on the porch where the clambering vine has 
encrusted its folds on the column, 
Festooning it over with grape-like bunches of flow- 
ers of purpling hue; 
And I gaze on the alleys of box as of old ; but there's 
something pervading and solemn 
In the silence that hangs like a pall on the earth 
from the heavens' ethereal blue. 

From under the maple leaves fairy-like bells are 
springing like fountains of tears ; 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 19 

Is the red in the shrubbery there that I see the 
pyrus japonica's hue, 
Or is it the blood that has fled from a brow that now 
like a statue's appears — 

An immaculate image to set in the niches of mem- 
ory fadeless and true ! 

To the meadow I stray where the immortelle grows 
with its soft white clusters of flowers ; 
We called it balsam in childhood's days. (Is there 
balsam for grief to be found?) 
And I see a forget-me-not too : (will the charm of its 
name ever fade?) but the hours 
Are long when we cannot forget the loved ones 
that wait for us under the ground ! 

On the far-off river the white-winged shallops are 
hurrying down to the capes ; 
(We've an ocean to cross that is deeper than theirs 
— a fathomless sea to traverse!) 
And night will come on with converging gloom to 
spread o'er the landscape her crapes; 
But its gloom is already enclosed in the hearts that 
have now but their sorrow to nurse. 



20 A NOVEMBER DREAM. 

To-morrow a bell will be tolled, and through curious 
groups a procession be led, 
And the resonant words of the ritual then will thrill 
in each heart to its core : 
" I heard from Heaven a voice say, Write from 
henceforth blest are the dead 
That die in the Lord;" and the earth will be 
dropped, and, save memory, all will be o'er. 



A NOVEMBER DREAM. 

I. 

O PRITE-LIKE night-blasts mournfully wail from 
the shelterless gables. 
Casement, chimney, and vane utter unceasing la- 
ments. 
Drear rain patterings, blent with the ring of the sleet 
on my window, 
Sound in my weary brain, lengthening the hours 
of night. 



A NOVEMBER DREAM. 2i 

II. 

Listing the sighs of the wind, I gaze on the flickers 
of hearth-flame, 
Like old fancies of youth, rising by fits but to sink; 
Elf-like shadows revolve on the wall as expires a 
flame-flit : 
Night looks in at the pane. Solitude reigns in my 
breast ! 

III. 

Sudden there wakens a blaze from the embers that 
weirdly dancing, 
Shows me a paragon shape, mantled in drapery 
white ; 
Sylph-like glides the illusion of beauty into my 
chamber, 
Over her wondrous eyes flutter her tresses of jet. 

IV. 

Cherished ideal that erst I imaged, when reveries 
blissful 
Banished the shadows of earth ! Star that illu- 
mined my night — 



2 2 A NOVEMBER DREAM. 

Phantom of light, that ecstasy's day-dreams oft have 
revealed me, 
Now that I meet thee again, joying, I claim thee 
my bride ! 

V. 

Murmur thy faith in accents sweeter than trembles of 
harp-strings ! 
Here I would clasp thee close, fearing to lose thee 
for aye ! 
Close on my cheek let me feel the fragrant warmth 
of thy breathings ! 
Whisper an answer of love ! Grant me an earnest 
of bliss ! 

VI. 

Silently rising, she beckons, and leads through soli- 
tudes pathless — 
Byways, thickets, and woods — wintry and desolate 
vales ; 
Onward she glides, till the portal we pass of a crum- 
bling cathedral, 
Filled with a shadowy throng. Faces familiar are 
near. 



A NOVEMBER DREAM, 23 

VII. 

Strange, unearthly, and sweet, yet sad, is the plaint 
that the music 
Spreads through chancel and aisle, up to the pin- 
nacled roof — 
Mournful at times as a dirge ! Fast bind, gaunt priest ! 
for I plight her 
Now and forever my troth: — mine till the hour of 
death. 

VIII. 
Thus are ye gone, dear friends? I am blest, e'en 
though ye forsake me. 
Friendship is naught to her love. Blissfullest hour 
of life: 
Joying I greet thee! Silent and wistful she stands 
by the altar. 
Tear-drops moisten her cheek. Why do they 
sparkle and fall? 

IX. 

What are thy parents to thee, my own, my beautiful? 
I will 
Build thee a grot in a vale, near to the murmuring 
rills. 



24 A NOVEMBER DREAM. 

Margined by tufts, where violets cluster in loving 
embraces, 
Fanned by the breezes of June, blown from a glit- 
tering lake. 

X. 

But for a moment my glances of love's first tender- 
ness wandered — 
But for a moment, and now, why has she fled from 
my side? 
Whither have vanished the soft dark eyes that enrap- 
tured my senses? 
Why has my happiness flown ? Witchery troubles 
my sight. 

XI. 

Vapors of purple and violet tremble and hover before 
me; 
Gleams like elfin eyes wander in serpentine curves; 
Shapes like her's, but filmy and strange, glide up- 
wards and vanish. 
Phantasms dance in the air — darkness has shrouded 
the day. 



A NOVEMBER BREAM. 25 

XII. 
Here are a graveyard's mounds, I ween, for I tread 
upon rib-bones 
Tangled in grasses and mould. Pallid as ghosts 
are the tombs; 
Foot-stones, lichened with wan vegetation, are scat- 
tered around me; 
Birds of ill omen and strange hold in the cypress 
their watch. 

XIII. 
Hark! 'Twas the tone of the dreaming church-bell, 
rung by the night wind ! 
Windowless sockets and rifts glower like the eyes 
of a skull ! 
Deep in the night of the grave they have lowered 
their burden : 
Hark ! they have rattled the earth. S'death ! 'Twas 
the form of my bride ! 

XIV. 

Sleeps she? The trumpet of doom shall awake her, 
though deeply she slumber. 
Mantled in bliss as a bride — shining in beauty and 
light— 

3 



26 A NOVEMBER BREAM. 

Mine nevermore — Heaven's wedded ! But I will fol- 
low thee now to 
Death in the eddying tide ! World, thou art can- 
kered. Adieu ! 

XV. 

Dark is the shade of the oak-wood lone. Like faces 
from Tophet, 
Wavelets that gambol and laugh, mocking the 
depth of my woe, 
Sport in the column of light that the red moon, prone 
on the waters. 
Sheds from the verge of the flood. Beckon no 
more, for I come ! 

XVI. 

Chilling and swift is the sweep of the tide ! I would 
it were June ! I 
Would that on pebbly beds, ribboned with tremu- 
lous green. 
Calmly I slept where fish flit past like glances of 
silver — 
Minnows that seemed dark thin lines as I gazed 
from the brink. 



A NOVEMBER DREAM. 27 

XVII. 

Ever the flood rolls over the blinding slime of the 
channel — 
Is there no respite in death? Is there no peace in 
the wave? 
Fain would I cling to the chilling and tide worn stone 
in the current ! 
Fain would I bury my form under the slippery 
rocks ! 

XVIII. 
What moves there on the brink where oozy jettison 
gathers — 
There where dank plants droop, sickened by with- 
ering frosts, 
Dripping with venom — the bower of reptiles? It was 
but her shadow ! 
Mist-like sinking to earth, slowly she fades from 
my sight. 

XIX. 
Misery's reign is eternal — moments of joyance are 
fleeting ! 
Incubus shapes of the dark hang on my laboring 
breast. 



28 DISSEVERED. 

Light, I salute thee ! The dissonant clash of the 
storm is receding; 
Casements whitened by dawn, banish the phantoms 
of sleep. 



DISSEVERED. 

1 ^YES adored, that meet me with aversion, 

^ — ^ Hours are few since you were bright and tender: 

Lips that part to utter but aspersion, 

(As though I, the injured, were the offender ! ) 

Glowing lips, I would I could forget you ! 

Infant smile, whose image I so cherished ; 
Spite of manhood, I must still regret you; 

Though the love you erst exhaled, be perished ! 

Tress that I 've disordered with my kisses. 
Twining you once more, in dreams I linger. 

Sad, how sad, the thought of those gone blisses! 
Let me now but touch one taper finger. 



DISSEVERED. 



59 



And I '11 swear that soon your scorn shall vanish ! 

I would love you still — would love you ever. 
Would it cost you your despite to banish? 

Pause, O pause — speak not the fatal ''never!" 

Grant me but of love some passing semblance ! 

Let me cherish still the dear illusion 
That you bear, at least, a kind remembrance 

Of the days we spent in fond delusion. 

Is it naught that we have loved in peril? 

Naught that we have lived, and hoped together? 
Must I own that all our vows were sterile, 

And your constancy a wind-blown feather? 

Gold might buy me other ardent glances — 

Smiles that gold could buy would bring but sorrow! 

Wine might sometimes speed me happy trances — 
Dreams would chase them — and the weary morrow! 

Youthful heart, when on this breast you slumbered. 
By your breathings. Time marked happy hours. 

Now my sighs must tell them — sighs unnumbered — 
From a breast that cherishes dead flowers. 



3* 



30 



TO A BUTTERFLY. 



TO A BUTTERFLY. 

r^ RACEFULLEST theme of the rhymer— model 
^-"^ for art's inspiration — 
Now on the woodbine's lip tasting the nectar per- 
fumed ; 
Kissing anon, at your whim, the amorous blushes of 
Rosa; 
Would you her loveliness shame by the perfection 
of ycurs? 

Would you confide to the flower your secrets of life 
metamorphosed ? 
What were your dreams when you slept shrouded 
in tresses of silk? 
Or did the somnolent trance of your couch leave no 
reminiscence 
That the aerial sprite erst was a ravenous worm? 

Why those pinions of exquisite curve and miniature 
plumage 
(Frail, to be marred by a touch, strong to support 
you in air) — 



TO A BUTTERFLY. 3 1 

Why your gorgeous tints, rich pattern, and delicate 
fringes ? 
Were you a heavenly type sent to enrapture the 
earth ? 

Why those wondrous eyes, if their countless diminu- 
tive lenses, 
' Gilded and bright, can perceive naught that is hid- 
den to us? 
Nature's volitions, her symmetry rare, and germs 
embryonic — 
All that the wisest but guess, clearly perchance 
you behold. 

Who would have deemed that the larve that lifted 
its head as imploring 
Mercy from pitiless foes, as o'er the grasses it crept. 
Bore in its bosom the impress faint of a beauteous 
Psyche, 
Weak, yet of force to emerge, winged from its 
cerement's twine? 

You, the Hellenic soul, did your strange transmuta- 
tions 
Plant in the bosoms of men hopes of elysian bliss? 



3 2 THE LAST AlEE TING. 

Fed on ambrosial sweets, O loved immortality's sym- 
bol, 
Perfected, joyous, and free, teach us a lesson of 
faith. 



THE LAST MEETING. 

/^~\ TELL me v/hat alchemic spell has transformed, 
^-^ in the crucible strange of your heart. 
The roseate flame that your love had enkindled, 
to smouldering ashes and gray, 
With dark emanations of hate and disdain, while you 
with dissimulant art, 
Despite the emotions that shatter your being, would 
smile and would feign to be gay? 

Why tell me you lived for me once? Am I yours 
forever to spurn at your whim ? 
Why censure yourself for the past? Why blame 
nie for wrongs that were suffered by you, 



THE LAST MEE TING. 3 3 

(Recounting the tale of your grievances o'er, till your 
bright eyes suffuse and grow dim), 
And by force of repeating it ever and ever, believe 
that your story is true? 

I am cold, you exclaim; and you chide my neglect 
that has chilled your affection to ice. 
I would I were cold, and I would that your taunts 
could restore me my manhood again. 
Inconstant you deem me, and mockingly speak of 
dead hopes and a heart's sacrifice. 
How sharply each word strikes into my breast when 
you tell me my name was your stain. 

Inconstant? I would I had ne'er forsaken the world 
to live but for you ! 
Unfaithful I would I had been, and for solace could 
fly to another's embrace 
When banished from yours. I would I could sigh 
to another and love anew, 
And forget in some wanton's arms your scornful 
and angered, yet beautiful face. 



34 AN EPISODE. 

Not a pledge would you leave in my hands of the 
days of our bliss — of your love, not a token. 
Can you take from me memory? No! Then of 
you I have something that yet I may prize, 
Though my gifts be returned with disdain, and your 
last words at parting in anger are spoken, 
And my letters are burned, and their blackening 
films in derision float up to the skies. 



AN EPISODE. 

/^~~\NE year ago we met. A fancied stigma 

^-^ Had turned my footsteps from the walks of 

men. 
Vainly I struggled with a dark enigma. 

From solitude I sought for solace. Then 
I conjured back forgotten memories 

Of days before my folly brought me grief. 

In poesy's refrains I sought relief. 
And when I found no respite in all these, 



AN EPISODE. 



35 



We met. Thou, too, hadst deepest sorrow known; 

Yet grief had furrowed not thy beauteous face, 
Nor man's detraction turned thy heart to stone, 

Nor tears upon thy cheek left any trace; 
Only within the depth of thy sad eyes 

(Those long-lashed hazel eyes that haunt me still), 

I read the story of thy life. A thrill 
Passed through my frame. With glad surprise 

I knew I lived again. Or was I dreaming? 

I saw a shadowed smile thy pale lip twine. 
I told my love, and set those eyes to beaming. 

Like sunlight stealing o'er the Arctic brine. 
And yet thou would 'st not pledge to me thy heart, 

Nor bid me consecrate my life to thee 

(The bondsman of a sterile destiny) ; 
But gently prayed me to forget and part. 



I plead. My lips grew eloquent to woo. 

It was not well, I said, thy grief to nurse; 
There were yet joys to live for. My life, too, 

Was clouded by the shadow of a curse. 



36 AN EPISODE. 

Was it a theft to cheat the wished-for tomb? 

I bade thee bless the hour in which we met. 

What though love might not be : a fancy yet 
Might cheer the heart, and lure it from its doom. 

The summer twilight faded while I plead ; 

Among the leaves the evening breeze had died ; 
The wondering stars had gathered overhead ; 

I paused for answer, but no voice replied. 
I grasped thy hand. On mine a tear-drop fell. 

I knew the struggle with thy pride was o'er; 

Thy bosom throbbed; and soon my shoulder bore 
Thy dark-brown curls — for broken was the spell. 

Why should I tell the bliss of love's first hours? 

The past had vanished like a fevered dream. 
We seemed to loiter in a vale of flowers — 

In whispering woods, or by some rippling stream, 
Where birds in joyful chorus, warbling love. 

In fluted accents called us to rejoice. 

We mocked at danger ; scorned each warning voice ; 
Nor cared for tongues of men, nor Heaven above. 



AN EPISODE. ^y 

How faint the trace that happy moments leave ! 

The blind divinity takes flight. We heed it not; 
Yet feel an miaccustomed want, and grieve ; 

Or wondering, blame the sameness of our lot. 
A change waylays the impulse of the heart; 

And jealousy ensnares us, and despite, 

And next, recriininatioJi, (passion's blight!) 
'^Our destinies diverge," we cry, and part. 

Again I wander in the solitude, 

To gather memories of hours of bliss. 
Sadly I loiter in the summer wood. 

To cull some cherished word — some bygone kiss. 
The stars look dim. Each night breeze seems a sigh. 

Time pauses now. Sad willows drip their sorrows. 

Vainly I strive to image happy morrows. 
Love brought me transports ! In love's grave they lie ! 



38 



A THRENODY. 



A THRENODY. 

HARK ! what sounds so faintly ! 
'Tis the mother's sigh; 
O'er the bier she 's bending: 

Gathering in her eye, 
The tear-drop stands and glitters, 
That one so young should die. 

Pale, his cheek of beauty, 

Closed, his eye of fire. 
Closed, the lips whose accents 

Breathed, but to inspire. 
And trembled sweetest concord. 

Like music from the lyre. 

Like the bursting snow-bells. 

Fading ere the May, 
Sprang he forth and blossomed. 

Bloomed, and passed away; 
And wist not of the flowerets 

That wooed his longer stay. 



PHILOSOPHIC REVERIES. 

Blissful be thy slumbers, 

Happiest is thy lot; 
Spring to thee ne'er waneth, 

Beauty fadeth not; 
And heaven's eternal sunshine 

No mournful cloud can blot. 



39 



PHILOSOPHIC REVERIES. 

T~A REAMS of the morn that dissever the marvel- 
^"^ lous gossamer dream-weft 
Woven by sleep o'er the soul, visions of beauty ye 
bring. 
Cloud-bars dark that lifelessly hung o'er the yellow- 
ing day-break, 
Flush into crimson and rose, bordered with glitter 
of gold. 

Hail ! O radiant Sun, the bestower of beauty and 
motion — 
Deity erst — thou art still Earth's Demiurge to the 
wise. 



40 PHIL OSOPHIC RE VERIES. 

Prisms of glory celeste that blend in ethereal bright- 
ness, 
Glitter from thee to impart life in its myriad 
types. 

What if the world of the senses were naught but a 
cheating illusion, 
Pictured within to deceive? What if the hours of 
light 
Shadowed but semblances fleeting, that like the kalei- 
doscope's changes, 
Imaged us that which is not? What if the day were 
a dream? 

Vainly the eyelid shuts to exclude the enigmas of 
daytime. 
Sleep with dalliance soft, vainly the senses would 
lull : 
Phantasms throng the arena of dreams in bewildering 
numbers : 
Dramas of life are renewed, thrilling with passion 
and pain. 

Oft in my fanciful moods I exclaim : '' Could we 
read — all is written!" 



PHIL OS O Fine RE VERIES. 41 

Mark but the characters cut over the brow of the 

old: 
See yon brown dry leaf that lies in its nook by the 

wayside, 
Lettered with runes of the past. 'Tis but a leaf 

from the Book. 

Present and gone time, life and the world, like a mi- 
rage of dream-land, 
Seem in the distance to hang, while in the valley I 
stray : 
Here is an ice-bound tank : on its marge are arrow- 
head writings. 
Traced by the finger of frost. What is the legend 
they tell ? 

There are the oak-trunks (columns that prop a mag 
nihcent wood-roof). 
Covered with hieroglyphs rude. Who may their 
purport declare? 
Cycles of time are chronicled on the terrestrial ta- 
blets : 
Traces of flood and of flame score them with cha- 
racters strange. 

4* 



4 2 PIHL OS OPHIC RE VERIES. 

Dreams of the primal world I have dreamed, when 
the Pythoness Science 
Taught me to read on the stones legends of ages 
agone : 
Oracles wondrous as myths of the Giants Titanic she 
u.ttered ; 
Figures archaic and rude rose from the earth at 
her nod. 

Not by the rock where is graven their story, alone do 
we know them : 
Oft in the twilight air strangely their shadows re- 
turn: 
Yester, at eve, where a sycamore lone spreads bark- 
dropping branches, 
Waited a skeleton huge, shattering wind-bleached 
bones. 

Darkness deepened apace, and Orion with sabre and 
star-belt 
Rose in the dome of the sky — spectral in majesty 
grand. 
There, in abysses of boreal space, the mythical Ursa 
Circled around the dim pole. Thus circle all things 
by Law. 



THE MEETING. 43 

Power unworshipped — Necessity — guarded by fabled 

Erinnys — 

Thee in thy symmetry stern, vainly would fancy 

portray ; 

Yet in the silence of midnight, oft a cathedral majestic 

Seems to environ thy fane, lit by the myriad stars. 



THE MEETING. 

'npREMULOUS clusters of stars, like far-off lights 
^ of a city 

Mirrored in ebony depths, sprinkle with jewels the 
dark. 
Over the sky the pavilion of night is expanded in 
beauty. 
Pensively whisper the leaves. Dank is the grass as 
it sleeps. 



44 THE MEETING. 

Musing I wander alone in the glimmering air of the 
June night. 
Over the somnolent wood rises a silvery disc. 
Here is the path that we trod when sun-heats danced 
on the hill-side — 
When from the redolent fields odors of harvest 
were blown. 

Here are the rocks that we clambered to gaze on the 
eddying mill-stream ; 
Bubbles that flashed in it then mirrored the light 
of her eyes. 
Suns of November have sunk since then on a misty 
horizon — 
Frosts with a transient glow since have emblazoned 
the wood. 

Broader methinks are the plates of the lichens that 
cover the rock-fronts; 
Thinner the delicate moss seems on the mould of 
the wood : 
Here as of old are the thickets of laurel, unmatched 
in its beauty: 
Yet at the turn of the path, why do I loiter and muse? 



THE MEETING. 45 

Happy the days when the fiction we cherished that 
love was eternal : 
How could the heart that was mine e'er by another 
be claimed? 
How could the lips that had blossomed to red in the 
June of their first love 
E'er for another unfold? Did they not plight me 
her faith? 

What if again she would sit by my side on the ver- 
durous moss-bank, 
Where the anemones bloom, would she not smile 
as of old? 
Probing her glance, would I read in the great bright 
iris of hazel, 
Shaded with beauty's impress, thoughts I divined 
not before? 

Calm is the night — but the shadowy pine-trees, why 

do they shudder? 
Fringes fantastic of mist, why do they sway in the 

vale? 
Strangely a vaporous film glides up from the stream 

in the valley. 



46 THE MEETING. 

Is it a phantom in white feigning the shape that I 
loved? 

''Art thou a spectre to mock me — a dream, or a 
cheating illusion? 
She that thou imagest lives — perished forever for 
me. 
Art thou the spirit that fled when fatality bade us dis- 
sever, 
Leaving the exquisite form lorn of the charm of 
the soul? 

''Wouldst thou persuade me that hours and years 
were a dream since we parted? 
Wouldst thou confute me with tears? Reason to 
tears would succumb. 
Happier I with the memories cherished of thee as I 
knew thee, 
Than the pretentious spouse, proud of his beautiful 
bride." 

Gusts of the night-wind like dirge-harmonies swell in 
the tree-tops : 
Ripples expand on the stream : meteors flit in the 
sky : 



THE BALL. 47 

Low in the dome of the heavens a cloud-shape gloom- 
ily poises: 
Wraith of the glimmering past, how hast thou 
vanished from sight? 



THE BALL. 

W /HO 'D think, in the crush of a supper-room, 
' ^ Where Verzenay sparkles and viands fume, 
And silver and glasses, in many a row. 
With taper and gaslight are all aglow — 
(Each supper resembles the others, you know) — 

To meet, near tables with ices laden. 

Where hostess, and waiter, and matron and maiden 
Are crowded together like sheep in a storm. 
And the air that you breathe is heavy and warm — 
To meet (did I say?) in a human form 

The ghost of a love that held you a slave 

In days that have passed to the sleep of the grave? 



48 THE BALL. 

What a market of beauties ! Inspect but their arms — 
'Tistrue they're enamelled to heighten their charms, 
And rouged, and the dresses are cut rather low — 
Though to speak of such things is not comme il 

faut — 
(Society imposes its duties, you know.) 
And there are the sleek mimic men with eye-glasses. 
That vacantly stare when some visitor passes 
Who 's not in society : such is their tattle — 
(Their pardons I crave — I should have said *'prat- 

tie,") 
And who languidly wonder how 'tis that such cattle 
Can force their way into the elegant world — 
(Their universe narrow — starched, powdered, and 
curled.) 



I was just stifling down my twentieth yawn. 
When a face met my glance that was pensive and wan, 
Yet lit by the radiance of dark, splendid eyes — 
It was but a glance, and I asked in surprise, 
''Who is she?" The ubiquitous hostess replies: 
''I '11 present you." "I've met her," I stammered, 
''before;" 



THE BALL. ^g 

Then those dark eyes met mine as they 'd oft met of 
yore. 
She spoke, and methought her pallid cheek flushed, 
(As if life should return to a flower once crushed,) 
And the answer that rose to my lips was quite 
hushed : 
' ' My heart was your prize. Keep my secret at least. ' ' 
And she glided away 'mid the throng of the feast. 

Her diamonds gleamed as she slipped through the 

crowd, 
And around her the obsequious manikins bowed, 
'Till a tall man stepped up and presented his arm ; 
'Twas her husband, one said, and many a farm 
And villa were his; (for wealth has its charm 
In the elegant world ;) but I 'd dreamed she was dead 
And buried far over the ocean — not wed. 

And I thought of the days when we loved, long ago; 
But then she was nameless and poor; (and you 

know 
A decent respect to society we owe ;) 
Yet to-night, when I saw her bright eyes and dark 

hair, 
I seemed in another world — no matter where. 
5 



50 THE DREAM AETER THE BALL. 



THE DREAM AFTER THE BALL. 

T T ARK ! 'Tis the music again, and the clatter and 
chime of the glasses 
Cease, as they haste to the waltz, quitting the flow- 
ers and wine : 
Bright are their eyes as the jewels that sparkle and 
gleam in the gaslight; 
Redder than rubies their lips, flushed with the joy 
of the dance. 



Yet in the fragrance and blaze of the ball a disturbed 
reminiscence 
Haunts me of eyes that I met first in the light of 
this hall : 
Spectres of bygone days from their graves are hover- 
ing round me, 
Till those eyes in the throng resting on mine I be- 
hold. 



THE DREAM AFTER THE BALL. 51 

White as a feathery cloud from the snow-drifts circle 
the dancers; 
Like a memorial shape modelled in marble she 
stands : 
Starting, I waken, and find but the solitude dim of 
my chamber — 
Down from its glimmering frame gazes her portrait 
on me. 

Sleep comes back with its marvellous life and its 
strange retributions: 
Quickly my torturing Dream hurries me back to 
the ball. 
There is the house in a glitter of light, with its car- 
riages waiting : 
Hark how the viols scream ! Bear me away, O my 
Dream ! 

Sharp ice-bayonets chillingly gleam as I stride o'er 
the pavement; 
Down from the glimmering roofs eddies the dust 
of the snows: 



52 THE DREAM AFTER THE BALL. 

Still the arpeggios blend with the lingering tone of 
the hautboy; 
Cadences faint of the dance die on the shivering 
air. 

Shadows of street-lamps lengthen and hunt me from 
corner to corner; 
Echoes that follow my steps, bark like a pack from 
the shades. 
List to the wrangle of clock-bells knelling the death 
of an hour. 
Slowly a hearse-like cloud trails o'er the crescented 
moon. 

Is it her shape that confronts me again by the sha- 
dowy columns? 
How have the eyes I adored changed to a Nemesis 
stare ! 
Stonily fixed upon me is her gaze, and the pitiless 
night-wind 
Loosens her drapery white. ''Hold ! I will speak 
to thee here." 

''Lips that in bygone hours exhaled love's roseate 
perfume ; 



THE DREAM AFTER THE BALL. 53 

Speak to me now but a word ; tell me the folly was 

mine ; 
Tell me that false were the doubts and susi^icion that 

bade me forsake thee — 
Speak ! In the name of the past here I conjure thee 

to speak! 

*' Others I've loved m their turn, and their images 
live in my day-dreams; 
Thine is the brightest of all. Thou wert the fairest 
and first : 
Rending thy love from my breast, I cherished the 
thought to forget thee — 
Vainly — for part of my life clung to the quivering 
roots!" 

Pausing, I linger and listen to catch some tremulous 
accent. 
Borne on the shivering air, saying: *'Thy fault is 
forgiv'n." 
There in her place I see but the glimmering shapes 
of the marble. 
Flecked by the shadows of trees, leafless, and ser- 
ried, and cold. 

5* 



54 SUNRISE. 

Leave me, O comfortless Dream of the night, for the 
planets are waning; 
Dawn's coronation is near. Spare me the shapes 
of the past ! 
Change to an aureate glow, thou chilling and ashy- 
horizon. 
Sleep, thou art dear to the sad. Send me a vision 
of bliss. 



SUNRISE. 

TV /r ORN dawns over the tree-clumps dark that 
cling to the hill-side : 
Gold-fringed violet clouds hide the expiring stars : 
Forth flit jubilant birds that, fixing their gaze on the 
heavens. 
Warble their cantique of morn : perfect, and purer 
than prayer. 



SUNRISE. 55 

Odors from dew-washed hyacinths, violets, roses, and 
woodbine. 
Pinks, and magnolia globes, blend with my vanish- 
ing dreams : 
Circled about with an ambient nimbus of glittering 
fire. 
Out of the motionless flood peeps the imperial sun. 

Gossamer threadlets of light that glisten like tiniest 
rainbows. 
Touching my window-panes, break into glittering 
rings. 
Over the wall to the ceiling in golden eddies they 
ripple : 
Puffs of the languorous breeze tell me of daybreak 
and June. 

Down in the vale each flowery eye is moistened with 
dewdrops; 
Tears of devotion and love greet the return of the 
sun: 
Yellowing over the fields they image his glorious 
aspect; 
Raying their petals around centres of luminous gold. 



56 SUA'RISE. 

Roseate visions of bygone days, return in your beauty : 
Memories cherished and dear, rise, O, again from 
the past, 
Smiling or pensive as when in the hours of bliss I 
beheld ye, 
Hither, ye gentlest forms ! hither, wing hither your 
flight ! 

There where murmuring bees through rose-red clover 
are straying — 
There where silvery streams trill in their serpentine 
beds — 
Dance your fluttering footfalls over the dews of the 
valley ! 
Greet me with radiant eyes ! Greet me with pledges 
of love ! 

Sun of my life ! when thou leavest me, be thy de- 
parture in splendor ! 
Glow with descending rays, calmingly glow on my 
heart ! 
Sink at the close of the day, to me, in blissfulest 
musings; 
Living in fancy again, all that I erst have enjoyed ! 



TRANSFORMED. 57 



TRANSFORMED. 

T DREAMED a dream of solitude and spring. — 
Methoiight that near a lonely lake I strayed : 

I dreamed not of the flowers that minstrels sing, 
But of a spring where waiting nature prayed 

For warmer suns and less inconstant days : 
A spring of longings yet unsatisfied, 
And restless wishes that in hearts abide. 

Like fancies half divulged of poet's lays. 

Above the water tasseled alders drooped 

To shed their yellow dust. The wandering vine 

Swayed in the wind, and with dry tendrils looped 
The nests of other springs. Beneath, the creeping 
pine 

Through mould and faded grass its chaplets trailed. 
Within the lake were countless insects strange. 
That lived expectant of a blissful change 

To speed them airward, brightly winged and mailed. 



58 TRANSFORMED. 

No voice or footfall broke the solitude, 

But near the moss-grown rocks I found a boat ; 

I leaped on board and seized its paddles rude, 
And slowly steering, saw the shadows float 

Upon the water. In that silent place 

Methought I marked an image bright and fair 
Beneath the wave : yet gazing, saw but there 

The pale reflection of my dreaming face. 

The vision changed, and stars shone bright on high : 
I saw them mirrored in the still dark lake ; 

But when a faint streak tinged the summer sky, 
A song-bird's warble bade the woods awake. 

So sudden and so liquid was the trill 

That every bird shook off" the dews of night 
And sang its theme with emulous delight 

Until the day broke o'er the misty hill. 

The sunbeams burnt the gauzy veil away; 

Stray threads of brightness fringed the chestnut 
tops; 
And while I watched the changing shadows' play, 

A blaze of glory lit the dark-green copse : 



TRA NS FOR MED. 5 9 

Then laurel chalices of faintest pink 

Blushed redder in the glow: the golden rod 
And countless yellow blossoms of the sod 

With eager thirst the sunlight seemed to drink. 

Festooned with vines the branches hung like bowers 
O'er shady wood-walks, redolent and cool: 

Near the lake's margin scarlet water flowers 
Stood like a palisade, and in the pool 

The nymph-like lily raised her head with pride. 
Above, with wings of iridescent shine, 
Darted quick dragon-flies, and insects fine. 

And I was blest, for thou wert by my side. 

Another change. I dreamed that thou wert dead ! 

My aimless steps were ever by the lake ; 
I lingered there, but glowing suns had fled, 

And winter shed his sorrows, flake by flake. 
Across the ice the drifting heaps were blown. 

And where in summer dawns the flowers' breath 

Perfumed the air, there seemed to float but death ; 
For in my dream I wandered there alone ! 



6o A AUGHT A T SEA, 



A NIGHT AT SEA. 

A HUNDRED leagues away from thee 
■^ ^ Thy parting vows the waves repeat ; 
I speed a kiss across the sea; 

The wind shall bear it to thee, sweet. 

At midnight on the lonely deck, 

What time the night-watch cries ''All's well!' 
No clouds the placid night-sky fleck. 

And my glad heart responds, ''AdMe!" 

The moving microcosm is hushed. 

Save when I hear the steam's long sigh. 

Afar, the ocean's verge is flushed 
With moon -dawn in the Eastern sky. 

The splashes from the swift prow's lunge 
With vivid phosphorescence shine. 

And witch-lights flicker round the plunge 
Of dark wheels in the seething brine. 



PALINODE. 6 1 

The cordage, like some wind-harp strung, 

Hums faintly as the breezes play ; 
Methinks I hear those chords among. 

Songs of the Oceanidae. 

Above, the planets softly beam, 

And while I watch the swaying spars, ^ 

The slowly moving topmasts seem 

To trace thy name among the stars. 



PALINODE. 

~r)ALLID and tremulous stars look down upoi 
^ corridors empty : 

Echoes receding of wheels die in the vista of walls : 
Solitude reigns in the street where late was bewilder- 
ing movement : 
Naught but the gendarme's tramp troubles the 
silence supreme. 
6 



62 PALINODE. 

Naught, did I say? for I see in the distance a shadow 
approaching : 
Is it a man or a ghoul? Palsied with want and 
debauch, 
See yon wretched chiffonier prowling with basket and 
lantern ; 
Stooping, the garbage he turns, there in the haunts 
of the rat. 

Threading her careworn way through intricate tangles 
of by-streets. 
Slowly the weary grisette glides to her fireless 
room : 
Hungered and lonely she starts as she sees in her mir- 
ror a spectre ; 
And as she sinks on her couch, moistens her pillow 
with tears. 

Where is the gaiety now that enchanted in happier 

days her companions? 
Gone with her beauty and youth ! dead as the rose 

on her cheek ! 
There, in a desolate matisarde^ flickers the light of a 

taper : 



PALINODE. 63 

There, with the taper, perchance, dies a Bolicuiicn 
lone. 

Paris the wanton, thy beauty enamelled 's a lie and 
deception : 
Twine not wreaths for thy brow: sorrows are lurk- 
ing beneath. 
Over the sea of the west there 's a land where a glit- 
tering tinsel 
Hides not phantoms of want, ghastly, misshapen, 
and wan. 

Sleep I invoke to my couch, but sleep comes not to 
my eyelids: 
Visions of bygone days shift in my laboring brain : 
Memory opens before me the past in the mind's pan- 
orama; 
Swiftly she bears me to scenes over the sea of the 
west. 

There, where gorgeous sunsets blossom in purple and 
orange — 
There, where feathery pines, skirting the shore of 
the sea. 



64 PALINODE. 

List to the surges of ocean that boom o'er glittering 
sand-bars, 
Thither in thought I return, back to the land of 
my birth. 

There, as of old, would I stray on the sea-strand's 
checkered mosaic, 
Watching the small dark conchs sporting in minia- 
ture lakes 
Left by the refluent tide. When they see you, the 
hermits 
Hurry their spidery feet into their delicate cells. 

Now in a rock-bound gorge I roam, where evergreens 
spiral 
(Hemlocks, larches, and pines) grow from the 
precipice sheer: 
Down in the valley, and margined by willows that 
slant with its current. 
Darkly a rivulet flows, covered with Nymphean 
leaves. 

There in my boyhood's days, where insects bask in 
the sunshine. 



PALINODE. 65 

Oft have I loitered by fens choked with hixiiriant 
green, 
Gazing on motionless minnows, or gathering cardinal 
flowers. 
That, when I bore them home, sickened and wilted 
away. 

There once more I behold, through silvery h izes of 
autumn. 
Forests whose blood-red tints vie with the flowers 
of June ; 
Down from the sycamore branch crisp leaves like 
parachutes falling, 
Carpet the sod : brown burs open to scatter their 
fruit. 

Miniature nets, by the speckled Arachnes hung upon 
grass-blades. 
Fringed with the pearls of the morn, glitter as rises 
the sun : 
Soon will the faint green lines of the grain be traced 
in the wheat fields; 
Shocks of the yellowing corn vary the hues of the 
scene. 

6* 



66 PALINODE. 

There I behold, in the light of an ambient dawn of 
December, 
Frost-ferns, wondrous and rare, etched upon glim- 
mering panes; 
Sounds of rejoicing and voices of jubilant children 
salute me ; 
Bell chimes seem to repeat: "Rise! 'tis the morn 
of the Christ." 

Gossamer texture of memories cherished, unrolled by 
the fancy, 
Woven into your weft, faces familiar I see. 
Smiling as erst, or tristful as when in the hour of part- 
ing; 
Tears rose into your eyes : accents familiar I hear. 

Morning will break o'er the town, and I '11 see from 
my balconied casement 
Throngs in the mart of the flowers, down by the 
white Madeleine : 
Paris, the wanton coquette, from her slumbers by 
daylight awakened, 
Soon shall with winning smile banish my longings 
of home. 



THE ROSE AND THE TOBTB. 



67 



THE ROSE AND THE TOMB. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 

'' I ^HE Tomb said to the Rose: 
^ ''Sweet flower that by me blows, 
What dost with the tears of dawn?" 
The Rose said to the Tomb : 
''And thou with those dropped in the gloom 
Of thy gulfs that forever yawn?" 

The Rose said: "Sombre Tomb, 
From the dew I distil a perfume 

To shed o'er the mourners and thee." 
The Tomb said: "Flower of love. 
An angel I send above 

From each soul that is brought unto me!" 




68 A MA V NIGHT A T NICE. 



A MAY NIGHT AT NICE. 



ARKNESS falls on the mountain side as we sit 



-■— ^ by the woodbine, 



Breathing the incense of love under the heaven of 
France ; 
Fitfully through the flowery lattice the even-star flick- 
ers: 

Linger, sweet moments of bliss ! Vanish not, planet 
of love ! 

Out in the night, where we saw but a vague and misty 
horizon, 
Mark yon silvery streak, rising above the dim sea : 
Now from low dark cloudlets it breaks like the glow 
of a furnace — 
Luna, a rose-red disk, floats o'er the glittering 
flood. 



A MA V NIGHT A T NICE. 69 

Quickly her rays bring back a fairy-like semblance of 
day-time ; 
Naught wears thy drapery, Night, save the dark 
shapes of the rocks : 
Scarce does a wavelet's plash disturb the celestial 
silence — 
Rapturous hour of love, pause in thy arrowy flight ! 

Out of the undulous sweep of the tideless Mediterra- 
nean, 
Ships in the offing jut, dwindled to shadowy lines ; 
Gracefully sleeps on the far-off swell the swan-like 
felucca — 
Thus would I sleep on thy breast, maid of the elo- 
quent eyes ! 

Lengthening their shadows, the motionless orange 
trees stand in the garden ; 
White are the aloe urns, bristling with falchion 
leaves ; 
Pennon-like cactuses droop bright flowers of scarlet 
and purple ; 
Pomegranates glow in the green ; hyacinths breathe 
their perfume. 



yo A MA V u\ IGHT A T NICE. 

Silence supreme: — but list to a bird-note that comes 
from yon palm tree — 
'Tis sweet Philomel's voice, singing her night-song 
of love: 
Strangely her warble repeats to my ear the melodious 
accents 
Breathed by the maid at my side: "M'atme tu, 
vion chert, mon dme?^^ 

Over the gables the moonlight rests like a silvery 
vapor : 
See how the shadows have turned since last we 
gazed on the town : 
Hark ! what a sweet-toned carillon now thrills in the 
air from the belfry ! 
Linger, thou loveliest Night ! Come not to vex us, 
O Day! 




FROM NICE TO SAVON A. yi 



FROM NICE TO SAVONA. 

'' I ^HE diligence toils slowly up the mountain, 

^ Past gardens where the languid blossom droops ; 
Past terrace, frescoed wall, and sculptured fountain, 
Where dark-eyed children gaze in classic groups; 



Past olive groves whose rigid foliage blanches. 

Each tree stands stiffly on its ancient mound 
As that first shoot that rose with pale green branches 

When Pallas' sceptre struck the Attic ground. 

Beneath the cliffs the broad sea lies unruffled ; 

A thin, hot mist dilutes its fervid blue : 
No plash of wave: the boatman's oar seems muffled: 

Above it floats the small white-breasted mew. 

Before me sits a sullen English dandy — 

A London swell, with gamboge-colored beard. 

And breath that yields an odor faint of brandy — 
Complexion florid, and eyes slightly bleared: 



72 FROM NICE TO SAVOXA. 

And while I weave poetic shreds he proses, 
With languid drawl and patronizing glance : 

" 'Tis stwange you Yankees all speak through your 
noses : 
They say you 've women who wear coats and pants, 

''And some that put piano legs in twowsers : 
Your girls are pretty; but, dear me, too thin." 

''Your English ladies," I replied, "are rousers, 
But then, you know, that ours do not drink gin!" 

We pass the graceful city of Monaco 

(Built on a promontory by the sea), 
That thrives by hells and contraband tobacco — 

A microscopic principality. 

Its prince tastes otium cum dig. at Paris, 

And leaves his cares to men of lesser grade; 

But when his royalty he hither carries. 
His twenty soldiers make a grand parade. 

Beyond the frescoed villas of Mentone, 
Where Italy is French against her will, 



FROM NICE TO SAVONA. 



73 



Across a bridge that spans a cascade stony- 
There rises, steep and rough, a barren hill. 

At each end of the bridge I see a sentry — 
The first has breeches red and tunic blue, 

(One sees in France abundance of such gentry,) 
The other's uniform, of sombre hue. 

And cross, announce a soldier of King Victor. 

A custom-house — its tedium why describe? 
(The search for contraband would have been stricter 

But for the magic of a trifling bribe.) 

A squad of beggars with a hurdygurdy, 

Madly gesticulating, here we see. 
The quarrel ceases, and a brigand sturdy, 

Assuming looks of deepest misery, 

Implores a trifle for the love of Heaven, 
And stretches out his tawny hand for alms. 

A troop of children, too — I think eleven — 
Beg soldi, while my English cockney damns. 
7 



74 FROM NICE TO SAVONA. 

At Ventimiglia we halt for dinner, 

And taste a true Italian repast — 
Garlic, with flesh and fowl ! To a beginner 

Such banquets differ slightly from a fast — 

A fruitful fast — for here you can have cherries, 

Vifio al discrezione — wine at will — 
(Aye, if one could but drink it) — unknown berries, 

Japan fruit, almonds green, and figs, your fill. 

What frescoed walls, what towns with painted towers. 
We pass as still we wind along our way; 

Now up the mountain, where the dark cliff lowers. 
Now on the strand, and now by castles gray. 

We roll thro' narrow streets : dark eyes surround us, 
And dark-brown faces gaze from upper floors : 

We graze the balustrades, whose shapes astound us : 
How fine without — don't look within the doors ! 

Oneglia 's an ancient post-horse station — 

(Pronounced O'Nailia) — the name, you know. 

Is not Corkonic, though the Irish nation 

Begins its names, as these end their' s, with O. 



FROM NICE TO SAVONA. 75 

Albenga {Aldingaitmmi) — I '11 not worry 
Your patience, reader, with its history — 

If curious, you can consult your Murray, 

And learn what happened there when Rome was free 

And Carthage strong; when Magon fought the Ro- 
man. 

Yet, while upon its crumbling walls I gaze, 
Again I seem to see the Pisan foeman 

Rush from his ships to set the town ablaze. 

If burnt again, the city would be cleaner 

When built anew, its streets more neat and wide: 

I 'm almost certain it could not be meaner, 
Except the ancient Baptistry, their pride. 

A passeilger gets in, of mien Byronic: 

'*! go to Genoa, to kill a friend!" 
And with a frown, and tone of voice sardonic: 

''There is but blood can wounded honor mend ! 

''The villain was affianced to my sister, 

But left her for some maid of sparkling eyes : 

I 've made my will, bid my adieux, and kissed her: 
I '11 seek him out: he marries her, or dies!" 



7 6 FROM NICE TO SAVONA. 

The assassin's pistol is a single shooter 
(Unloaded), with a barrel of blue steel, 

And stock of ivory: the faithless suitor 
At sight, I trust, will due contrition feel ! 

He gives me, also, useful information 

About the price of butter, wine, and cheese — 

Forgetting, for the time, his indignation. 
To tell me how they grow their olive trees. 

The sun goes down, and twilight fades, but Venus 
Shines brighter here than e'er I 've seen her light; 

And brighter still, the half moon comes to queen us. 
And chase away the shadows of the night. 

She lights up yawning chasm and gloomy grotto — 
(They call the railway tunnels grottos here). 

A Genoese girl with a \\h.\tQ pezzotfo 

Spread o'er her jet black hair and bosom clear, 

Loosens her skirts to slumber near my shoulder. 

Of Yankees dreams, perchance, my Briton bold. 
La Bella droops her head: must I uphold her? 

The assassin slumbers too, and catches cold. 



A SUNDA V IN ROME. yy 

*Tis after midnight when we reach Savona: 
The moon, reflected from the harbor's depths, 

Illumines statued shape and white Madonna, 
And loungers sleeping on the marble steps. 

I too must sleep and take a bath : to-morrow 
I start for Genoa the proud, by steam. 

Adieu, Postillion ! thee I quit with sorrow : 

Romance, adieu ! with railroads ends thy dream. 



A SUNDAY IN ROME. 

'T^O-DAY there's High Mass in the Chapel Sistine; 

^ The Holy Father will officiate; 
And there you'll see the famed religion pristine, 
In all the majesty of solemn fete. 

Only remember, that to gain admission 
It is de riguetir that you dress in black, 

With swallow-tail and white kid gloves. Permission 
To enter in your traveller's garb you 'd lack. 

7* 



78 A SUNDA V I.V ROME. 

Your lady, too, if haply you 've a sposa, 
Must wear a veil d V Espag7iole {ii'' importe 

If she be blonde or briifie), and {brutia cos a!') 
Must don a robe of black, or long or short. 

The sun in the Piazza della Spagna 

Shines hotly on the artists' models, who 

Sit there in costumes odd from the Campagna; 
A lazy, splendid, heterogeneous crew. 

Brigands, and weird old men with snow-white tresses. 
Young shepherd boys and dark-eyed peasant girls — 

What graceful shapes — what strange, yet tasteful 
dresses — 
What ruby lips; and, under them, what pearls! 

Corpo di VeJiere I Were I a painter, 

Or artist — Arrestate cocchier'! 
When memories of Rome grow faint and fainter. 

At least I would recall what I see here. 

But basia ! Now e?i route for old St. Peter's, 
Another day, perchance, when I have leisure, 

I '11 stroll this way. Those Roman fire-eaters. 
The Garibaldian reds, when, for their pleasure, 



A SUNDA V I A' ROME. 79 

They chase out priests and Pope, will spare the mo- 
dels! 
Ah ! I forgot again to-day was Sunday — 
'Tis strange how mundane thoughts stick in our nod- 
dles, 
E'en here in holy Rome. At least for one day, 

A man should — By my faith, there is St. Peter's! 

There is the obelisk — that storied column ! 
How in the morning sun the Duomo glitters 1 

And there 's the Vatican — the old and solemn. 

O Romans, when you're free, and have elections. 
And firemen's rows, and councilmen that plunder, 

What use to you will be your fine collections 
Of paintings rare, and ancient art? I wonder 

If female suffrage — free love — But look I 
The great door of the chapel opens slowly; 

A pious train, with cross and beads and book, 
Glides through the portal to the precincts holy 

Of Sixtus' chapel, on whose walls and ceiling 
The frescoes grand of highest art show faintly. 



8o A SUNDA V IN ROME. 

Along the aisle the pious flock are kneeling — 
A pause — and then a long procession saintly 

Of haughty cardinals, with eyes sardonic, 

Comes sweeping in with trails of brightest scarlet — 

(Despite their aspect of devotion chronic, 

They somehow make one think of St. John's harlot!) 

The noble green dragoons, with glittering sabres, 
And motley Swiss guard, block the avenues. 

While Anglo-Saxon tourists crowd their neighbors 
To see the Holy Father enter, whose 

Long train of gold-embroidered white, in state 

By hands ecclesiastical is carried. 
They 've seen the Pope ! A sight to compensate 

For all the strange discomforts that they 've parried 

Since their arrival in the Holy City. 

Damp chambers, garlic, fleas, strange smells, bad 
liquor, 
Malaria, steep bills (the more 's the pity), 

Are all forgotten now they've seen Christ's vicar! 



. A SUN DA V IN ROME. 8 1 

Wearing upon his brows a gold tiara, 

Pio sits under his red canopy : 
No organ's note is heard; but {avis rai'd) 

A fat castrato in the balcony, 

With cracked and tuneless voice sings the soprano. 

Like certain scenes in Verdi's Trovatore 
The music sounds to an Americano. 

Toe-kissing next — I used to doubt the story — 

But lo ! the Papa's flowing robe is lifted. 
And kneeling saints his slipper kiss devoutly. 

His blessing then from hand to hand is shifted. 
And all the while the choristers bawl stoutly. 

A grave archbishop spouts a Latin sermon, 

And now and then breaks down, or gets entangled : 

One's ears could brook a speech in French or German; 
But Latin — most unclassic, too, and mangled — 

It makes one think oi peiisiuns — recitations, 
Flogging — stiff ushers, et id om7ie genus / 

Truly, it's too much for a trav'ler's patience: 
Better seek out the Medicean Venus, 



82 A SUNDAY IN ROME. 

The Belvidere, or fighting Gladiator, 

And study them, than watch these priestly bruins. 
So I, a bored and undevout spectator, 

Must leave this saintly place, and seek the ruins. 

*'Cocchiere, drive me to the Coliseum; 

For there I shall escape the pompv^us scena 
O^ Miserere, Agnus, and Te Deum.'''' — 

'Tis vain — for, straying round the vast arena, 

A cowled train 1 meet of mendicants. 

Who kneel at pictures of the via crucis — 

Wailing the while most melancholy chants. 
Close following in the wake of the recluses, 

Old women fling their arms around the crosses. 
And kiss the soil (for martyrs perished there !) 

While thoughtful men, who seem to count their losses, 
And ragged children, raise their eyes in prayer. 

I climb the stairways, where rank flowers bloom : 

As slantingly the shades of even fall. 
Thick flights of chattering birds start from the gloom 

Of hidden vaults, and fissures in the wall. 



A SUNDA V IN ROME. 2>l 

On the Campagna, in the glimmering light 

The shaggy herdsman drives his cattle home — 

There, underneath the sod, in deepest night, 
Lies the dead city, time-ennobled Rome. 

And while I gaze and muse, the toga'd crowd 

Comes down again from yon dark, shapeless hill; 

And, scattering like a light and shifting cloud. 
The huddling ghosts the spectral galleries fill. 

With eager haste they seek their well-known places. 

The servile courtiers glide in, and soon 
The Caesar comes; while o'er the skeleton spaces, 

Above them stares the pallid, corpse-like moon ! 

Two ghostly gladiators fight. One falls, 
And falling, lifts his supplicating eyes 

To faces whom no sight of blood appals — 
The victor's dagger glitters, and he dies! 

"Hallo there, Signor!" cries a voice that's human, 
"The Angelus has long since tolled. You seem 

Quite ignorant of our rules. Descend, my true man !" 
— The grum custodian mars my classic dream. 



84 FA LG RAVE COUNTESS JUTTA. 



PALGRAVE COUNTESS JUTTA. 

FROM THE GERMAN. 

T3FALZGRAFIN Jutta crossed over the Rhine 
-*- In a light skiff, by the pale moonshine. 

Her maiden rows. The Countess cries : 

*'Seest thou those seven corpses rise, 

And behind us come, 

Hither swum. 

Thus motirn fully swim the dead!'''' 

*'They were seven knights of lofty crest, 

Tenderly sank they on my breast, 

And swore their faith. For prudence' sake, 

And lest perchance their vows they 'd break, 

I had them bound, 

And in the Rhine drowned. 

Thus mournfully swim the deadl^^ 



MOUNT CEXIS. 85 

The Countess laughs at her maid's affright; 
Her scornful laugh rings through the night: 
Up to their waists the dead men rise, 
And gaze on her with glassy eyes; 
Their hands they lift, as if to swear — 
They nod, and glare. 
Thus uiounifully siuim the dead ! 



MOUNT CENIS. 

A T Susa halts the train. The night is moonless; 
^ ^ Deserted streets re-echo to our tread. 
No serenade is heard, — the town is tuneless — 
Can this be Italy, — and all abed? 

Two hours of ennui at a railway station — 

Some drowsy tourists in dreadnaughts and shawls 

Are huddled to keep warm, — their sex or nation 
'Twere vain to guess at in these half-lit halls. 



36 MOUNT CENIS. 

The long refreshment room looks cold and dreary — 
Railway saloons are everywhere the same — 

No portly boniface, of aspect cheery, 
Begs you to deign to register your name. 

No porter grasps your satchel and umbrella — 
No bowing waiter ushers you up stairs ; 

Comfort 's a stranger here. The host's a fellow 
Who for his victim's coinage only cares. 

The viands on his board look desiccated — 
His liqueurs — alcohol for pickling snakes — 

The coffee — with that too, you 're quickly sated — 
His tariff, — each guest frowns as he forsakes 

The hall. But see, the diligence approaches — 
Four horses, and ten mules, with jingling bells, 

The lumbering relic drag. ''These old stage coaches 
Are barbarous," exclaims a voice that tells 

Her nation. '' Name of Mary, an Inglese !'^ 

With horror ill-concealed, ejaculates 
A young Italian, elegant and lazy. 

Who shrinks into his cloak. The lady waits 



MOUNT CENTS. 87 

With maid and lapdog at the steps. ''My patience ! 

Will no one help me in? At home, the men 
Are so polite, — but oh, these foreign nations!" 

We haul the helpless female in, and then 

Her maid and cabas follow. Off we rumble. 

Crack! crack! goes the postillion's whip. Hi! ho I 
The driver bawls. The mules and horses stumble, 

And up the zigzag steep we slowly go. 

Beside a gloomy chasm we mount for hours. 

The constellations bright and Jupiter 
Illuminate an outline dark that towers 

Towards the sky, — a mammoth mountain spur. 

Our English neighbor sleeps — her speech expended — ■ 
Her salts and guide-books roll among our feet. 

The young Italian, at her mouth distended, 
Peeps shyly, as he quits his snug retreat 

In a dark corner. Daylight slowly meets us — 
Thin morning mists crawl up the mountain side. 

Again a glimpse of verdant patches greets us 
Almost to where eternal snows abide. 



88 MOUNT CEXIS. 

Tlie railway track is near ns, with dark tunnels, 
Snow-sheds and masonry to hide the view ; 

But Heaven preserve me from those sulphurous fun- 
nels — 
Give me the pure, fresh air, and vaulted blue. 

And at the stage's jolting I'll not grumble. 

See how from yon tall cliff the waters leap ! 
See how the brooklets foam and sport and tumble — 

Who'd pass them in a railway car, asleep? 

And now, a first ray of the sunlight glistens 

Upon an icy peak, like golden sand. 
Another peak lights up, and in the distance 

Another aids the illumination grand, 

That penetrates the depths of that dark chasm, 
Down whose steep side the noisy streamlet fumes; 

And where, as rent by some primeval spasm, 
The precipice in sombre grandeur looms. 

We reach the post-road's summit. Ever higher 
The peak, white as Carrara marble, seems — 

Above it, like an avalanche of fire, 

The morning sun in cloudless splendor beams. 



MOUNT CRXrS. 8c) 

Downward, with whirlwind speed we fly — the grasses, 
Laurels, and evergreens, with dew-drops wet, 

Almost translucent seem in sunny passes — 
The little rills, in devious courses set, 

Trill merrily, and in the charming valley 
That lies beneath the dizzy ledge, we gaze 

On church-tower, verdant slope, and moss-grown 
chalet — 
A sight too exquisite for words of praise ! 




8* 



90 AX ALPIXR DREAM. 



AN ALPINE DREAM. 

1"^ REAMING, I seemed to climb a narrow ledge 

Around a precipice, abrupt and dark, 
That towered to the sky from lower gloom, 
Narrowing the gorge as if to bar my way. 
Anon the cloudy drapery that swathed 
The upper crags, hung down a ragged fringe 
Of chilling vapor on my zigzag path, 
And drizzling in minutest drops of rain. 
Drenched the granitic wall; but when the wind 
Boomed in the dreary woods of larch and fir 
That struggled with the rhododendron's growth 
On lower slopes, the torn and swaying mist 
Arose, revealing in the distant vale 
Some strips of tessellated green, that seemed 
Like velvet mantles flung on dark, gray rocks. 
Above, were plains aslant of glistening ice. 
That hid the deep and treacherous crevasse, 
And from them, streams in countless courses crept, 



AN ALPINE DREAM. ^ I 

And scored the mountain's side, and heaped moraine, 
Until, in resonant cascade combined, 
They leaped athwart the ravage dim of rocks 
That choked the bottom of the dark ravine. 

I paused to rest and muse, when by my side, 
Astonished, I beheld a sombre shape, 
Of aspect stern as Radamanthus. With 
A voice that seemed from subterranean depths, 
He said : '' My name is Reason. List my words. 
If thou wouldst quit this dreary realm of clouds 
And reach the mountain's jDinnacle — there where 
A cold transcendent solitude of light 
Dazzles the eye and sets the heart aglow 
With splendors pure and fadeless; follow me. 
Reason alone the path can trace that leads, 
Though steep and toilsome, to exalted Truth. 
But shun the old enchantress men call Faith, — 
She who'd persuade thee, that by suppliant phrase 
Thou couldst a spell invoke to stay the storm. 
Or check the sounding avalanche's fall, 
And change the course of nature. Idle breath, 
And eloquence misplaced ! A Force supreme, 
(Whose subtlety thy keenest thought eludes,) 
Pervades and dominates the universe, 



92 ^A^ ALPINE DREAM. 

Restraining it in fixed routine by laws 

Immutable as yon granitic crag. 

'Twas this that gave the atoms of the world 

Attractive and repulsive energies, 

And grouped them from the primal haze of space. 

'Twas this that lent a life incipient 

To inert matter, whose fine molecules 

Grow into crystals, countless in their forms, 

And beauteous as the stars. 'Twas by this Force, 

That animation, limitless in types. 

Evolving ever, overgrew the earth. 

The Force that built the crystal, built the man. 

The work but differs in complexity. 

And wouldst thou deem that clasped hands, bent 

knees. 
And eyes upturned to gaze on vacancy. 
Could dissolution's sure approach avert. 
Or sequence bring of good or ill to thee? 
Prayers of the wise would end but in self scorn. 
The heaven men pray to is but empty space — ■ 
Their hell — some legend of volcanic flame — 
Their special providence — but some result 
Of Nature's ancient and unvarying laws. 
Their vaunted lore of prophecies fulfilled. 



AN ALPINE DREAM 93 

Mere incoherent Delphic oracles — 

So vague, that each event their proof supplies. 

Their miracles — eclipses — asteroids, 

Or filmy comets trailed athwart the stars — 

Phantasmagoric sights t' affright the young. 

But if by Faith thy steps are still pursued, 

With fearless hand the Sorceress dissect, 

Nor pause thou, though a thrill pass through thy 

frame. 
To wound a form in childhood's days revered; 
For know that other Faiths have claims like thine — 
Perchance, some better. Some have passed away 
That were more beautiful than she, and some 
Most strange and monstrous ; to her rivals each 
Relentless. In those pious eyes there dwells 
No pity for an erring sister Faith. 
Where are the graceful Gods that Homer sang? 
Where are the Eleusinian mystic rites? 
Where are the Mythric and the Gnostic creeds?" 

Then to the Apparition, I replied : 
^'My thoughts with thine move not in sympathy. 
To me thy voice is cheerless as thy shape. 
Emotions — spurned by thee, to me are Truth 
Of inner life — the reflex wondrous of 



94 -^^ ALPINE DREAM. 

Tlie infinite. Here would I cull the buds 
That pierce the snowy sod on sheltered slopes, 
And cluster in the sparse translucent grass. 
Here would I gaze on azure mountain tarns, 
Or see yon streamlet, sprung from icy vaults. 
Break into throbs of vapor o'er the cliff. 
Here would I watch the far-off vulture's swoop 
And list the tinkling of the clambering flock. 
Spare me thy dreary prose. E'en Science' self 
Imagination rules. Oft Fancy bears 
Into penumbral outer solitudes 
The votaries of knowledge, grave and cold. 
Such tinsel glittering I too have spun 
Aforetime, when I breathed Philosophy, 
And felt its first inebriation — when 
The mystery of all created things. 
In vanity of youth, I thought to solve. 
Then when I strove the enigma to unfold 
Why Evil lives with Good upon the earth, 
Like discords that in harmony are found. 
Or shadows in the picture of the world. 
In ecstasy I trod the upper air. 

Where clouds, like white-robed sages, seemed to 
pause ; 



AN ALPINE DREAM. 95 

But my weak voice no fitting utterance found 

For fancies half divulged that thronged my thought. 

The systems too I 've tried of other minds — 

The wondrous panoply they forged to turn 

The shafts of error. Me they did not fit. 

I found them like the shining mail, the locust, 

(What time she quits her lonely home in earth, 

And longs to spread her pent-up glittering wings,) 

Sheds on the trunks of trees — most beautiful, 

But useless. Then to self once more I turned 

And labored to cement my shifting sands 

Of thought to firm coherency, and rear 

A temple dedicated to new rites — 

The adoration of the Positive — 

The True. My curious composites lie scattered 

And blackening in the wind — my fane unbuilt. 

Thus thought is like a gloomy laboratory 

Where flits of flame and scintillating gleams 

Leave exhalations that becloud the day; 

But such grim alchemy consumes Hope's bud. 

The fumes mephitic wilt its tender shoots. 

Leaving a sterile and unsightly stalk." 

I paused, and thus the Phantom made reply: 
''Because the portal dark of nothingness 



96 AN ALPINE DREAM. 

Before thee stands in gloomy majesty, 

Thy purblind vision fills the void with phantasms. 

Where dwells the disembodied soul of Faith? 

A combination of known elements 

Produces brain ; and brain engenders thought. 

Thought sends volition through the nerves 

To muscles — these to sinews and to bones. 

Disintegrate the brain, and where 's the soul? 

Some fleck of moonlight in nocturnal woods, — 

Some phosphorescence o'er a twilight fen, — 

Some night wind's sigh, has filled the minds of men 

With fancies of a spirit world. 'Tis but 

A duping fable that the soul 's immortal. 

Soul is but life, and life is matter's function. 

Life has, in offspring, continuity. 

New forms grow, fern-like, o'er decaying fronds; 

And these, in turn, are ceaselessly transformed. 

An endless chain of causes and effects 

Enfolds the universe. Its shining links 

Thou may'st behold. Strive not at once to see 

The final symmetry of all ; but when 

Thy sight grows dim, seek Pleasure's joyous troop. ■ 

Call on Delight to tune her cithern. Crown 

Thy care-worn brow with evanescent chaplets. 



AN ALPINE DREAM. ^y 

Prolong till night the festival; nor doubt 
That all the earth contains of joy's thy boon." 

Then I, in answer: ''This, too, I've essayed, 
What time I vaunted of Philosophy; 
But while I walked in scorn, close on my heels 
A muffled Apparition seemed to glide, 
And when I paused, a sickly gleam of steel 
Shone from his mantle's fold, — Unrest. Almost 
Before I gained the choicest joys of earth. 
They seemed like cares. Almost before the pleasure 
Came the regret, — almost before the hope, 
The disappointment, — ere the life, the death. 
Oft have I cried, ' Would death might meet me now — 
Would that my grave were dug, and yellow dirt 
Piled up to rattle on my coffin lid. 
With rankest grass and tangled briers waiting 
To crawl above me in the noonday sun. 
Would that some current bore me to the sea, — 
Fit emblem of eternity and rest. ' ' ' 

The night had closed upon us while we spoke, 
And swarthy shapes shut out the feeble stars; 
And in the pauses of discourse I heard 
The roaring of the wind, and loud cascades. 
9 



98 ^^ ALPINE DREAM. 

Beneath, in blackness thick the chasm yawned ; 

When suddenly the clouds drew upwards o'er 

A serried outline dim towards the east, 

And there, methought a strange ensanguined dawn 

Lit up the sky, above the summits cold, 

And from a glimmering peak a glow arose, — 

Not the moon's rim, but like a cross of fire; 

And when I turned to Reason to expound 

The strange portent, methought a lambent flame 

Played o'er his lips. His eyes with red light glowed, 

And from his shoulders, vague and indistinct, 

I seemed to see a shape of dragon wings. 

Then, thrilled by mortal tremors, I awoke. 




SONGS FROM THE SERVIAN, 99 



F' 



SONGS FROM THE SERVIAN. 

I. 

'ORGET'ST thou, my loved one, when first thou 
wert mine, 

How the bitter tears trickled down into my breast ; 
And I said to thee: *' Dearest, why dost thou re- 
pine?" 
'Midst thy tears thou mad'st answer : ^' My darling, 
my best, 

*'I would the good God every maid would strike 
dead 
That 's true to her lover as I am to thee; 
For ere you possess us, you vow 'tis to wed; 

But when we are yours : ' Wait till Autumn,' 's your 
plea. 

''Yet the Autumn goes by, and when Winter is near 
Some other fond maiden your promise deceives. 

Like the sky, now unclouded, now gloomy and drear, 
Is the faith of a lover to her that believes." 



lOO SONGS FROM THE SERVIAN. 

II. 

O sombre night, thou'rt filled with clouds, 

Yet fuller of grief is my heart. 
My grief I must cherish, and tell it to none. 

To whom ecu Id I my griefs impart? 

For I have no mother my sorrows to hear. 
And I have no sister to solace my care. 

A lover I have, but he 's far from me. 
And his visits are late and brief and rare. 

For midnight is passed before he comes. 

I arise to receive him. 'Tis almost day; 
And scarce have we kissed ere the morning dawns- 

'"Tis daylight, dearest; I must away!" 



^^i 




LES BOKDS DU RHONE. loi 



LES BORDS DU RHONE. 



A MONG thy vines I stray, fair France. 
The sunlight glows between the trees. 
Upon a hill-top, as in trance, 
I loiter. In the autumn breeze 

The dry leaves dance. 



The tangled sweetbrier clumps embower 
The mountain side with stalk and shoot ; 

The wild thyme shows its roseate flower, 
And near the white thorn's ruddy fruit 
Shy wood-birds cower. 

The vane upon the village spire 

That peeps above the linden bough. 

Has glittered in the sun's last fire. 
The Aiigelus is tolled, and now 
Toil's sons respire. 



I02 LES BORDS DU RIIOXE. 

The outline of a chalky peak 

Blends with the feudal donjon wall 

That crowns its time-worn summit bleak, 
And seems, as even's shadows fall, 
A rugged streak. 

The twilight fades to sombre gray. 
And dies athwart the landscape dim ; 

The stars shed but a misty ray. 

And scattered autumn insects hymn 
A plaintive lay. 

The dews of heaven are Nature's tears. 
That fall in silence and alone; 

Night comes with supernatural fears, 
A dirge is in the breeze's tone 

When midnight nears. 

If death were but an endless sleep. 
And fortune, honors, learning, art 

Led but to slumbers long and deep. 
To quit such scenes, O, feeble heart, 
Thou couldst but weep? 



AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL MASQUE. 103 



AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL 
MASQUE. 

"V T IMBUS-LIKE hover the smoke wreaths over 
^ ^ the fluttering gas-jets. 
Odors narcotic and warm, blent with the perfume 
of wine, 
Redden the lips and illumine the eyes of the loves of 
the hour. 
Who in their carnival guise, aid in the revel of 
night. 

Smiling Zizine on a sofa outstretched, with her curls, 
like a baccante's, 
Flung o'er her forehead and neck, slowly her 
cigarette puffs. 
Gay Marguerite, the brunette, her exquisite ankle 
displaying. 
Sings us a chanson of love, draining her glass at 
each verse. 



104 AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL MASQUE, 

''Here's to champagne, with the spangles of ice in 
its glistening foam-beads ! 
Clash me your glasses to joy ! Clash to the potion 
of love ! 
Drink to the dance, — to the rapture it brings, — it's 
delirious madness ! 
Drain to the muse of the dance ! Drain to the 
passion divine!" 

''Fill me your glasses, and drain them to beauty and 
music ! 
Drain them to laughter and wit! Drain to the joy 
of the feast!" 
Marguerite breaks her refrain to call me her love 
and her darling. 
Kisses of love, are ye feigned? Who was her dar- 
ling last night? 

Down in the wintry street the snow-flakes, sweeping 

in eddies. 
Robe with a purity strange, poverty, want, and 

debauch. 
White are the roofs as the marbles unsullied that 

stand in the graveyard. 



AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL MASQUE. 105 

Opening the casement Zizine gazes unmoved by 
the sight. 

''Look at the cabman," she cries, ''who waits in 
the cold by the curbstone, 
White as a polar bear. Sprinkle his hat with 
champagne ! 
See those shivering beggars that huddle for warmth 
round the cafe. 
Now for a moment of sport! Fling them the waifs 
of our feast !" 

"Come!" cries Francis, "display the voluptuous 
grace of your cancan ; 
All of the pleasures of sense here in this night 
would I drain. 
Others may prate, if they will, of the joys of the 
ransomed in heaven, 
Losing the real for dreams. Paris is heaven for 
me!" 

Thus wear night's long hours away in inanities joy- 
less. 
Dreamy and listless I sit, waiting I know not for 
what ; 



io6 AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL MASQUE. 

— Meeting my leman's regards with a glance almost 
of aversion; 
When at the board I espy, wondering, an unbidden . 
guest. 

"Visitor unblest! — Thou, who to Eros' true banquets 
ne'er comest: 
By the dull glance of thine eye, and by thy leathery 
cheek. 
Well do I know thee. Satiety! — Spectre of joys that 
are vanished ! 
Phantom of gold-bought love ! — Prophet of sor- 
rows to come !" 

Strangely the gas-jets flicker, and seem to grow dim- 
mer and lurid. 
Hushed is the reveller's song, — dead the cham- 
pagne in the glass ! 
Francis reclines in his chair, and I list to his feverish 
breathings. 
Why does he moan in his sleep ? Dreams he of 
joys that shall be? 



AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL MASQUE. 107 

Marguerite slumbers; and half of the xanthine ring- 
lets that grace it 
Slip from her weary brow over her yellowing 
cheek. 
** Witching smile of Zizine: thou art grown con- 
tracted and ghastly, 
There, as she sleeps in her chair, breathing from 
colorless lips!" 



Others may rest in Satiety's clammy and leaden em- 
braces. 
I would dream of my home, over the cadcncing 
wave ! 
Let them live over in sleep the futile delights of the 
orgie : 
Boasting the present is theirs. Mine are the thoughts 
of \ki^ past. 

Yet, as my eyelids I close, again does the clash of 
the music 
(Blent with the din of the ball) sound in my fever- 
ish brain. 



lo8 AT SUPPER AFTER THE BAL MASQUE. 

Back to my sight comes the whirl and the dust and 
the glitter of gas-light — • 
Past me the dancers sweep, maddened with dance 
and with wine. 

City of pleasures, adieu! In the sky there's a 
thunderbolt forging; 
Pray that it come not on thee ! Wake from thy 
sybarite dream ! 
Call back the glory of learning and art that in olden 
time graced thee ! 
Think on thy patriot dead ! Change, ere the 
vengeance shall fall. 




THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 109 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES, 

(Literally translated.) 

DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

Creon. King of Thebes. 

HiEMON. Son of Creon. 

TiRESlAS. A seer. 

EURYDICE. Wife of Creon. 

Antigone. I 

> Daughters of CEdiptis. 

ISMENE. J 

Guard. 

Messengers. 

Chorus of Theban Elders. 

SCENE. 
Before the palace at Thebes — Dawn. 

Enter Antigone and Ismene. 

Ant. O kindred self! Ismene, sister dear, 
Know' St thou an evil, sprung from QEdipus, 
That Jove brings not upon us while we live ? 
There is nought sad, or free from suffering, 
10 



no THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Or infamous or base, which in thy woes 

Or mine, I have not seen. And now again 

What is the prohibition which they say 

The ruler on the city has imposed? 

Hast heard, or know'st thou aught ? Or are the wrongs 

Of foemen to our friends unknown to thee? 

Is. To me, Antigone, no tidings come 
Or sweet or sad of dear ones, since the day 
We were bereft of our two brothers slain 
By mutual hands, and now, that in this night 
The Argive host has fled, I know no more, 
Nor happier am I, nor more sorrowful. 

Ant. I knew it well, and therefore sent for thee 
Beyond the gates, that thou might 'st hear alone. 

Is. What then? I see thou'rt filled with some 
intent. 

Ant. And of our brothers, hath not Creon one 
With burial honored, and the other not? 
Eteocles, they say, he hath with right 
Entombed beneath the soil, an honored shade 
Among the dead below ; but say, to all 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. m 

The citizens he hath proclaimed that they 

Shall to no grave consign, nor tear shall shed 

O'er luckless Polynices' fallen corpse, 

But leave it uninterred — unwept — 

A prize for birds that hasten to the feast. 

Such orders, they affirm, good Creon lays 

On thee and me. On me — me too, I say; 

And that he comes to herald this aloud 

To all who know it not, that none may deem 

It is a thing of naught, for death awaits 

(By stoning) who offends. Thus stands thy case, 

And quickly wilt thou prove if thou be born 

With generous soul ; or base though nobly sprung. 

Is. But what, O wretched one, would I avail 
By breaking, or conforming to the laws? 

Ant. Consider whether thou wilt share this toil. 

Is. But what emprise — what purpose fills thy mind ? 

Ant. Wilt thou this hand assist to raise his corpse ? 

Is. Him wouldst thou give forbidden sepulture? 



112 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Ant. My brother yet, and thine, although it please 
Thee not. Yet ne'er will I be false to him. 

Is. O wayward ! dar'st thou what the king forbids? 

Ant. 'Tis not for him to rob me of my own. 

Is. Reflect, O sister, how our father died, 
Unhonored and with infamy, when he, 
(His guilt detected,) with destroying hand, 
Tore out his eyes: whereon his mother-wife,* 
(A double name,) mars with the cord her life. 
And next, our brothers, the unfortunates. 
Worked common death by mutual hands. And now, 
Think how we, too, (the only left of all,) 
Shall perish, if in violation of 
The law, we set aside th' authority 
And power of state. This should we think of too, 
That we are women, and unfit to wage 
A strife with men. And next, since those who rule 
Exceed our strength, we should submit to this 
And worse. So I, beseeching those beneath 

* Jocasta. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 113 

The earth to pardon me, because constrained, 
Will yield to those high in authority. 
Discretion is not shown by rash attempts. 

Ant. Neither would I request thee, nor shouldst 
thou, 
E'en though thou wishedst it, join me in this. 
Do what thou wilt, but I will bury him. 
To me 'twill then be beautiful to die. 
Dear to him will I lie beside him, dear 
To me, my purpose skilfully achieved. 
The time is longer to propitiate 
The powers that reign below, than those on earth, 
For there forever must I dwell. Yet if 
It seemeth fitting, just, and right to thee, 
Hold thou dishonored what the gods approve. 

Is. I hold them not dishonored, but 'tis not 
My nature to resist the public will. 

Ant. Seek pretexts as thou wilt ; but I will go 
To raise my dearest brother's sepulchre. 

Is. Ah me ! For thee, unhappy one, I fear. 

10* 



114 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Ant. Fear not for me. Thy own fate needs thy 
care. 

Is. At least disclose thy purposed act to none. 
Wrap it in secrecy, and so will I. 

Ant. Ah me, proclaim it ! I'll detest thee more 
For silence than if thou the deed disclose. 

Is. A warm heart hast thou for a chilling act. 

Ant. Those whom it most befits to please, I'll 
please. 

Is. If able — but thou seek'st what cannot be. 

Ant. What time my strength shall fail, will I 
desist. 

Is. Yet 'tis unmeet t' essay th' impossible. 

Ant. If thus thou speakest, thou wilt be by me 
Detested, and most odious to the dead. 
Permit me, and my ill-advised intent 
This peril to endure. To me there's nought 
So dreadful as ingloriou.sly to die. 



4 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 115 

Is. If thus it seem to thee, depart, yet know 
That unto loved ones, though unwise, thou'rt true. 

\_Exeunt severally. 

Enter Chorus. As they enter the sun rises. 

STROPHE I. 

Chorus. Ray of the Sun, 
Thou hast shone forth thy most beauteous light 
Upon seven-gated Thebes. 
At length hast thou gleamed forth, 
O eye of the golden day. 
Advancing over the streams of Dirce, 
Thou hast driven away in rapid flight. 
With sharper bit, 
The white-shielded warrior 
Who came from Argos in his panoply. 
Excited by the quarrelsome strife 
Of Polynices, 
Shrilly screaming. 

Like an eagle hovering above the earth. 
Covered by wings of white snow; 
With many a buckler 
And with horsehair-crested helmets. 



Il6 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

Above our palaces he stood 

Ravening with blood-stained spears in circles 

Around the entrances of the city of the seven gates. 

He went, ere he glutted 

His jaws with our blood, 

And ere the pitchy fires of Vulcan 

Had seized the crown of our battlements. 

Such a din of Mars was raised behind him — 

A stubborn conflict for the dragon. 

For Jupiter detests the clamor 

Of a vaunting tongue; 

And seeing them rushing on 

Like a current of rattling gold, 

With volleyed flame 

He hurled down him that was hastening 

Upon the summit of our battlements 

To shout Victory. 

STROPHE n. 

Crushed to earth fell the fire bearer, 
Who storming with phrenzied impulse 
Blew on us the blasts of fiercest hate. 



1 



777^ ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. ny 

Elsewhere was other calamity, 

For mighty Mars, storming upon their right. 

Directed other discomfitures upon them. 

For seven leaders before seven gates, 

Equals to equals opposed, 

Left to Jupiter the trophies of their brazen panoply. 

— All but the odious two, sprung from one father 

And one mother. 

Who raised against each other 

Their doubly conquering spears, 

And perished by mutual death. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

Now that renowned Victory 

Hath come to Thebes of the seven gates, 

It were well that oblivion 

Should rest upon these wars, 

Let us then repair to the temples of all the Gods 

With night-long dances; 

And let Bacchus, rousing Thebes, 

Begin the revelry. 

But here, lately elevated to power by the Gods, 

Comes Creon, the son of Menoeceus, 



Ii8 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

The monarch of our city, 
Revolving in his mind some anxious thought, 
For he hath convoked the senators to council 
By proclamation. 

Enter Creon. 

Creon. Ye Senators. The Gods who shook our 
state 
With many a wave, have righted it again : 
Therefore by messengers, I have convened 
You here, apart from all, well knowing how 
Ye did revere the throne of Laius, — how 
When CEdipus was king, and after he 
Had perished, ye were faithful still to him 
And his. Since, therefore, they by mutual fate 
And mutual guilt in one day perished, I 
His throne and power now hold by right of kin. 
The spirit, bent, and judgment of a man 
Can ne'er be known, until by discipline 
He shall have learnt to rule, and yet obey 
The laws ; for he that rules a commonwealth 
And seeks not counsel of the just and wise, 
But silence keeps through cowardice or pride, 
To me doth seem the basest of mankind. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 119 

And whosoe'er above his country holds ' 
His friend, him I account as nothing worth; 
For, (Jove all-seeing be my witness,) I 
Would ne'er be silent when some peril came 
Upon the citizens, nor would I choose 
A friend among my country's enemies, 
Well knowing this, that safety lies in her; 
And sailing in our country's barque, while yet 
She moves unfoundered, we gain truest friends. 
Such are the rules by which I shall exalt 
Our city. Guided by these maxims, I 
Have thus proclaimed to all the citizens 
Concerning those two sons of QEdipus : 
Eteocles, who for his country died. 
Bearing upon his spear the palm, shall lie 
Entombed with all the sacred offerings 
That reach the gallant dead below ; but he, — 
The brother, — Polynices, who returned 
From exile, thinking to consume with flame 
His fatherland and country's Gods, — who sought 
To glut himself with kindred gore, and lead 
The citizens in slavery away — 
Him I decree that none shall dare entomb — 
Nor funeral rites, nor tears shall be for him. 



I20 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

His corpse shall lie unburied, — food for dogs 
And birds of prey. Such is my sovereign will. 
Ne'er shall the profligate receive from me 
Honors that to the just alone pertain ; 
But whosoever is his country's friend, 
Living or dead, shall honored be by me. 

Chorus. Such is thy pleasure, Creon, both for him 
Who sought his country to destroy, 
And him who was her friend. In thee resides 
Control, both o'er the living and the dead. 

Creon. Be ye the guardians then of my decree. 

Ch. Commit the task to younger men than we. 

Creon. Watchers have been appointed for the 
corpse. 

Ch. What further duty wouldst thou then enjoin? 

Creon. Never to yield to those that would infract. 

Ch. None are so foolish as to seek for death. 

Creon. Death were indeed their recompense : 
Yet hope of gain hath ofttimes ruined men. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 121 

E7iter Guard. 

Guard. O king, I will not say that I have come 
Panting for breath, and lifting nimble feet, 
For thought resisted often by the way. 
Oft did I backward turn — my troubled mind 
Suggesting thoughts like this : ^' Unhappy man, 
Why wilt thou haste to meet thy punishment? 
Yet wretch, why tarriest thou? Should Creon learn 
These tidings from another, how wouldst thou 
Escape thy doom?" Revolving doubts like these, 
Slowly I came. 'Tis thus a short way's long. 
At last the thought prevailed to come to thee. 
And though my tidings please not, I will speak, 
For well the hope I cherish that no ill 
Can come to me, save by predestined fate. 

Creon. Why then this perturbation of thy mind? 

Guard. First would I tell thee what concerns 
myself, 
For neither did I do the deed, nor saw it done, 
Nor should I justly suffer harm for this. 
II 



122 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Creon. Thou aimest well, and fencest round and 
round 
Thy matter. Yet it seems thou hast some news. 

Guard. In sooth, dire incidents inspire fear. 

Creon. Wilt thou at last speak out, and go in 
peace ? 

Guard. Now will I tell niy news. Some one, 
the corpse 
Has just now buried. O'er the skin, dry dust 
They've sprinkled, and th' accustomed rites per- 
formed. 

Creon. What say'st thou? Who of men hath 
dared this deed? 

Guard. I know not. Neither was there, yonder, 
stroke 
Of pick-axe nor upcast of spade. The earth 
Unbroken showed no rut of chariot wheels. 
Who e'er the deed performed, no vestige left. 
Now, when the earliest watcher showed us this, 
A painful wonder seized on all. The corpse 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 123 

Was gone from sight, though not entombed. A thin 
Light covering of dust was o'er it spread 
As by some one that profanation shunned. 
No trace was there of dog or beast of prey. 
Ill words were uttered then — each against each. 
To blows we might have come, for none was there 
To stay them. Each was guilty, yet no guilt 
Was proved, for knowledge lacked us. We would 

pass 
Through fire — red-hot bars of iron lift — 
And to the Gods appeal by solemn oath. 
That neither had we done the deed, nor knew 
Who planned, or did it. Then at last when nought 
Was gained by our inquiries, some one spoke. 
And made us bow our heads to earth with fear, 
For nought could we object to his advice, 
And yet for us it bore no hopefulness. 
His purpose was that we the truth from thee 
Should not conceal, but faithfully report. 
This man's advice prevailed, and luckless I, 
By lot condemned, obtained the prize. So here 
Am I against my inclination. Well 
I know I am unwelcome to you all, 
For no one loves the bearer of ill news. 



124 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES;. 

Chorus. My thought, O king, hath pondered 
whether this 
Be not, perchance, a miracle of heaven. 

Creon. Cease ere thou fill my mind with rage — 
lest thou 
Be found not only old but void of brains. 
Thou utterest a thing unbearable. 
That for this corpse the Gods should have a care. 
Was it to honor his beneficence 
That they inhumed him? — Him who came 
Their columned temples and their gifted shrines 
To set in flames, and overturn the laws? 
Or hast thou seen the wicked honored by 
The Gods? It is not so. But in the city, some 
Already murmur secretly, and shake 
Their heads; nor bow their necks beneath the yoke — • 
Submitting unreservedly to me. 
The watchers, bribed by malcontents, did this. 
For no such evil institution e'er 
Sprung up amongst mankind as money. Towns 
It devastates. Men from their homes it drives. 
Their honest inclination it perverts 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 125 

To baseness, teaching them deceit, and dark 
Impurity of every act to know. 
The men who did this deed for hire, have earned 
My vengeance. Wherefore, if I hallow Jove, 
Be well assured of this, — for now I swear, — 
That if ye do not find the very man 
Who with his hands achieved this burial. 
And him before my eyes produce ; then death 
Alone shall not suffice for you : for hung 
Alive ye shall clear up this outrage bold, 
And learn what gain t' accept, and what refuse. 
For by unjust acquirements thou 'It see 
More men to ruin brought than profited. 

Guard. May I now speak, or must I turn and go? 

Creon. Know 'st thou not yet how vexing are thy 
words? 

Guard. Does thy mind pain thee, or thy ear alone ? 

Creon. Wherefore wouldst thou my grief explore ? 
Why this? 

Guard. The culprit pains thy mind, — /, but thy 

ears. 

II* 



126 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES, 

Creon. a babbler born art thou, and nothing 
more. 

Guard. And therefore, 'twas not I who did the 
deed. 

Creon. Thou didst it — selling e'en thy life for 
gold. 

Guard. Alas ! 
How hard it is suspicion false to bear. 

Creon. Talk loud about suspicion, but if ye 
Produce not those who did this deed, ye shall 
Avow that gains dishonest ruin men. 

\^Exit Creon. 

Guard. May we yet find him. — Whether found 
or not, 
(Which Fortune will determine,) here no more 
Will I return; for safe e'en now beyond 
My expectation, thanks I owe the Gods. 

{Exit Guard. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 127 



STROPHE I. 

Chorus. Many things are wonderful — 
Nought more wonderful than man. 
Across the wintry ridges of the sea 
That whiten into foam, he moves. 
He passes over billows 
That around him roar. 
E'en the supreme of Gods, the Earth — 
The immortal, undecaying Earth, 
He furrows, year by year, with plows. 
Her surface still upturning. 
With the patient horse. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

The race of foolish birds 

Ensnaring, he bears away. 

The tribes of savage brutes 

And marine produce of the deep 

He takes in meshy nets — 

Ingenious man. 

The mountain-ranging, forest-dwelling beasts of chase 

He masters by his skill. 



128 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Under the neck-encircling yoke he brings 
The horse of shaggy mane, 
And untamed mountain bull. 

STROPHE II. 

Language, rapid thought, 
And civic polity, — 

These hath he taught himself, and how to shun 
The cold and stormy darts of cheerless frost. 
This hath he taught himself besides. 
All-fertile in resource — nought can come on him un- 
prepared. 
Hades alone 

Can he ne'er flee from nor escape. 
Though for perplexing maladies, 
He hath found cures. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

Yet with such faculty of art 
Surpassing expectation. 
Now unto good he goes, and now to evil. 
When to his skill he joins observance of his country's 
laws 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 129 

And the oath-sanctioned justice of the Gods, 
He rises in the city. Cityless is the man 
In whom the beautiful dwells not 
Through his audacity. 

Never may such a man stand by my hearth — 
Ne'er be my thoughts as his. 

Enter Guard conducting Antigone. 

Chorus. At this astounding prodigy I am in doubt. 
For how can I who know her say 
That this is not the maid Antigone? 
O wretched one, 
And of a wretched father born. 
What now is this? Surely they have not brought 

thee here 
For disobedience to the royal mandate, 
And taken in the mad attempt. 

Guard. Here is the guilty one who did the deed. 
We caught her burying him. But where is Creon ? 

Chorus. Back from the palace comes he even 
now. 



1 30 THE A NTIG ONE OF SOPHO CL ES. 

Enter Creon. 

Creon. But what is this? What chance my 
coming fits? 

Guard. Mortals, O king, should nothing disavow. 
For later thought th' intention oft belies. 
And surely I'd averred that ne'er with speed 
Would I return to thee, imperilled as 
I was by thy fierce threats. Yet now I've come, 
E'en though by oath pledged never to return; 
For joy for that which doth surpass the hope, 
Dwindles all pleasures in comparison. 
Here now I bring this virgin who was caught 
Decking the tomb. No lot was shaken then. 
The prize was mine. No other had a share. 
And now, O king, do thou, receiving her, 
Both question and convict her as thou wilt. 
Exonerated now, I claim release. 

Creon. Why hast thou brought her here? Where 
was she found? 

Guard. She 

Was burying the man. Thou knowest all. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 131 

Creon. Art thou quite certain? Tell'st thou 
truly this? 

Guard. I truly saw her burying the corpse, 
By thee forbidden. Speak I clearly now? 

Creon. How was she seen? Detected how? 
Narrate. 

Guard. The matter passed in this wise. When 
we came, 
(Threatened with torments terrible by thee,) 
Sweeping away the dust that hid the corpse — 
The clammy body thoroughly we stript, 
And then sat down upon the summit of 
A hill, (which way the wind blew not, that thus 
No odor from the corpse might trouble us,) 
Man keenly rousing man with bitter speech, 
When any sought his labor to avoid. 
This lasted till the sun's resplendent disk 
Stood midway in the cloudless firmament. 
The heat was fervid. Suddenly a whirl 
Of wind, (the sky's pest,) rising from the ground, 
In furious commotion, filled the plain — 



132 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES, 

Smiting the foliage of the sylvan wood 

And filling all the air with flying dust. 

Shutting our eyes, we bore the heaven-sent plague ; 

But when the wind abated, we beheld 

The maiden wailing forth the shrill lament 

Of the afflicted bird, what time she looks 

Into her empty nest, reft of her young. 

So she, when she perceived the body stript, 

Burst into strains of grief, and curses heaped 

On those that wrought the deed. Dry dust she took. 

And from a well-chased ewer, poised aloft. 

She with the three libations crowned the dead. 

This seeing, we, nought terrified, laid hands 

Upon her — charging both the former deed 

And this; and nothing she disowned. But this 

To me both pleasing is and painful. To escape 

From threatened punishment is sweet, but friends 

Into calamity to bring is sad. 

'Tis natural that I should all things hold 

Of less import than safety to myself. 

Creon {io Antigone). Thou that dost bow thy 
guilty head to earth — 
Confessest thou, — or dost deny the deed? 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 133 

Ant. I do confess that I performed the deed. 
— That I performed it not, I do deny. 

Creon {to the^^Guard). Go where thou wilt, freed 

from this heavy charge. 
(^To Antigone). But tell me now, and not in phrases 

turned. 
But briefly and in words of plainest sense, 
Knew'st thou my edict that forbade these rites? 

Ant. I knew it, and why not? Was it not plain? 

Creon. How didst thou dare to disobey the 
laws? 

Ant. It was not Jupiter who reigns above, 
Nor Justice, dweller with the Gods below. 
That gave these laws to men. I might not deem 
That thou, a mortal, could' st transcend the laws 
Unwritten and immutable of Gods; 
For their decrees exist not of to-day 
Or yesterday, but from eternity. 
And none can know when first they were revealed. 
I might not then, through fear of pride of man, 
Incur the penalty of laws divine. 
12 



134 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Full well I knew that I must die. Why not? 

E'en hadst thou not decreed it, I had died. 

And if I die before my time, I count 

It gain. To one who lives in sorrow such 

As mine, how shall it not be gain to die? 

Thus my regret to meet my doom is nought. 

In this I sorrow not; but had I left 

My brother's corpse to lie in death untombed, 

Then had I truly sorrow known. Yet if 

To thee my deed seem foolishness, I'll say 

'Tis but as though a fool adjudged me fool ! 

Chorus. I'he spirit of the child is stubborn as 
The father's. She to ills knows not to yield. 

Creon. Yet be assured that over-stubborn wills 
Oft sink the deepest. Hardest tempered steel 
Thou oft shall see in shattered fragments lie. 
High mettled steeds I ' ve known by small bits curbed. 
'Tis not for one that lives the slave of those 
Near by, to bear proud thoughts. But she, when she 
Transgressed th' enacted laws, learned insolence. 
This done, — to glory in her deeds, and laugh 
In scorn, was yet another insult. I, 



THE ANTIGONE Op" SOPHOCLES. 135 

In sooth, am not the man, but she, if now 

This victory she gain, — and all imscathed. 

And therefore, whether from my sister sprung, 

Or yet from one more near than all beneath 

The guardianship of our Hercean Jove, 

She and her sister shall not now escape 

From wretched doom. For her I also charge 

With having jointly planned this funeral. 

Go summon her. Within, — ^just now 

I saw her raving, — all her senses gone. 

The mind of those who in the darkness plan 

Unworthy deeds, is oftentimes the first 

Detected in depravity. And I 

Do most detest that guilty ones when caught 

In act, should seek with words to gloss their crime. 

Ant. Desirest thou of me aught but my life? 

Creon. Nought else would I. When I have 
that, I 've all. 

Ant. Why then delay? Since me thy words 
please not, 
Nor could they e'er be made to please, — and mine 



136 THE ANTIGOXE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Are most distasteful unto thee. Yet how 
Could I have gained a loftier renown 
Than by interring my own brother dear ? 
To those that hear me, this were grateful too, 
Did terror not restrain their tongues. In this, 
And else, is tyranny most fortunate 
That it can say or do whate'er it will. 

Creon. Of all Cadmeans, thou alone seest thus. 

Ant. They see it too, but close their mouths for 
thee. 

Creon. Dost thou not blush to plan apart from 
them ? 

Ant. It is'not base one's brother to revere. 

Creon. Was't not a brother who died by his 
hand ? 

Ant. My brother, — from the selfsame parents 
sprung. 

Creon. Why pay'st thou honors that blaspheme 
the dead? 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 137 

Ant. The dead would ne'er assent to thy dis- 
course. 

Creon. Not if thou mak'st the impious his like. 

Ant. a brother perished, and in nought a slave. 

Creon. Wasting the land a brother fought to 
save. 

Ant. The grave for all like rituals demands. 

Creon. But not for good and bad an equal 
share. 

Ant. Who knows if those below approve thy 
words ! 

Creon. E'en after death the foe is not a friend. 

Ant. To love^ not join in hatred^ was I born. 

Creon. Get thee below, and if so loving, love 
Those there ! No woman while I live shall rule. 

Chorus. And lo ! at the gate comes Ismene, 
Letting trickle her sisterly tears. 

12* 



138 THE AXTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

On her brow the cloud-mist 
Bedewing her beauteous cheek, 
Obscures its blood-red tint. 

Enter Ismene. 

Creon {to Ismejie). And thou, that like a crawling 
viper in 
My house, didst suck my blood unseen, — I knew 
Not then that I was nourishing two fiends 
To undermine my throne; — come, tell me now, 
In this interment didst thou take a part. 
Or wilt thou say thou knew'st nought of it? 

Is. I did the deed, if thus she say. With her 
I did it, and with her I '11 bear the blame. 

Ant. But justice will not grant thee this, since 
thou 
Wert neither willing, nor did join with me. 

Is. In thy misfortunes, I am not ashamed 
To bear thee company in suffering. 

Ant. Who did the deed the Gods of Hades 
know. 
I like not those who are but friends in words. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 139 

Is. O sister, put me not to shame, but say 
I buried him, and let me die with thee. 

Ant. Die not with me, nor make this deed thine 
own 
That was not thine. My dying will suffice. 

Is. Forlorn of thee, what life were dear to me? 

Ant. Ask Creon — object of thy tender care ! 

Is. Why pain me thus with taunts that help not 
thee? 

Ant. Yet am I grieved. — If laughing, 'tis with 
grief. 

Is. How can I aid thee now? I pray thee, speak. 

Ant. Save thou thyself ! I grudge not thy escape. 

Is. Ah, luckless me ! Can I not share thy doom? 

Ant. It was thy choice to live, but mine to die. 

Is. Yet not for lack of warning words from me. 



I40 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Ant. Thy words to these^ and mine to those seem 
just ! 

Is. The guilt in sooth is equal in us both. 

Ant. Cheer up. Thou livest yet, — but I — my 
soul 
Is dead long since, that I the dead might aid ! 

Creon. Of these two girls I'll say that one's 
just now 
Gone mad. The other from her birth was mad. 

Is. Because, O king, when evil deeds prevail, 
The mind, though strong, is quickly overturned. 

Creon. Thus thine, when thou would' st join in 
evil deeds. 

Is. Without her, how could I my life endure? 

Creon. Speak not of her again. She is no more ! 

Is. Then thou wilt slay thy son's affianced bride? 

Creon. Full many a field is left for him to till. 



THE ANTIG ONE OF SOP HO CL ES. 141 

Is. But none so fit as that for them prepared. 

Creon. Bad wives for sons I utterly detest. 

Is. Dear Hsemon, how thy father wrongs thee 
now. 

Creon. Thou vexest me — thou, with thy marriage. 

Is. Wilt thou deprive thy offspring of his bride? 

Creon. Hades will bring these nuptials to an 
end. 

Is. It seems it is decreed that she must die. 

Creon. 'Tis so for thee and me. No more delay. 
Ye slaves ! Away with them. Henceforth must these 
Be kept as women, and not left to run ; 
For e'en the boldest fly when death they see. 

\Exeunt Antigone and Ismene, guarded. 

STROPHE I. 

Chorus. Happy are they whose life has not tasted 
of misfortune ; 



142 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

For to those whose house divine vengeance has 

shaken, 
Nought is wanting of calamity, that advances from 

generation to generation ; 
Like as an ocean billow, 
(What time blackness from the lower waters 
Is swept onward before the tempestuous Thracian 

blasts,) 
From the bottom of the deep 
Uprolls the dusky wind-vexed sand j 
And the wave-scourged cliffs rebellow with the roar. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

I see the ancient woes of the Labdacian family 

Falling upon the sufferings of the dead. 

Neither does one generation absolve another. 

Some God overthrows it; neither is there any respite. 

For now a light 

Shone over the last roots of the house of GEdipus; 

But the ensanguined glaive of the infernal powers 

Reaps it down — 

And the folly of speech and Erinnys of the breast. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 143 

STROPHE II. 

What man, O Jupiter, 

Shall by transcending, control thy power, 

Which neither sleep, that maketh all things old, can 

ever quell, 
Nor the unwearied cycles of the deities. 
Unchanged by time thou boldest thy sovereignty 
Upon the dazzling effulgence of Olympus. 
For the future, the present, and the past. 
This law will suffice, 
That nothing far removed from calamity 
Accrues to the life of mortals. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

To many, is fondly deceiving hope 

A solace — 

To many, the beguilements of capricious love. 

Upon the heedless it creeps. 

Until he finds his foot upon the glowing fire. 

In wisdom has this far-famed speech been uttered, 

That evil appeareth good to him 



144 '^^^ ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Whom God urges on 
Into calamity; 

And that but for a brief time does he fare without 
harm. 

[Enter H^mon.] 

(71? Creon.) But here is Haemon, 
The youngest of thy offspring. 
Comes he lamenting the doom 
Of his affianced bride, Antigone, 
And overgrieved at his lost nuptials? 

Creon. Better than prophets, we shall soon know 
this. 
Because, O son, thy promised bride is doomed, 
Com' St thou to rage against thy father, or 
Are we, however acting, dear to thee? 

H^MON. My father, I am thine. Do thou direct, 
And I will follow; and no marriage 
Shall e'er outweigh thy guidance wise with me. 

Creon. And thou, my son, shouldst in thy bosom 
feel 
That to a father's will, all other things 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 145 

Should be subservient. For this, men pray 

Their children may be dutiful, — their foes 

With evil to requite, and pay with them 

Like honors to their friends. But he that rears 

Unprofitable sons, — wouldst thou not say 

That he engenders sorrows for himself. 

And for his enemies much laughter? O, 

My son, lose not thy reason for a woman's sake, 

For know, 'twere but a chill embrace to have 

A worthless partner for thy bed and home. 

And what worse evil than a traitorous friend 

Could e'er exist? Then spurn her, as a foe, 

And let the girl in Hades find a groom. 

Since she alone of all the town was caught 

In open disobedience, she must die. 

False to my city will I ne'er be found. 

Let her invoke the God of kindred, — Jove. 

For if my kinsmen prove unworthy, then 

In sooth, how much will they be worse that are 

Without the pale of consanguinity. 

The man who in his family is just 

Will in the state be upright found and true ; 

And such a man, I know, would wisely rule 

13 



146 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

And willingly obey, and in the storm 
Of spears stand to his post, a soldier brave ; 
While he who breaks the laws by violence, 
Or thinks to bid the powers that be, obey, — 
'Tis not for him to seek for praise from me. 
He whom the city doth appoint must be 
As well in matters small and matters just, 
As in the opposite of these, obeyed. 
There is no evil worse than anarchy. 
It ruins states — lays houses low, and in 
The battle spreads disorder through the ranks; 
While discipline saves such as heed its laws. 
And rulers should be aided by the ruled. 
But ne'er submission to a woman made. 
'Twere better, when it needs must be, to yield 
Before a man, than suffer such a stain. 

Chorus. To us, unless our minds are dulled by 
age, 
The sentiments thou utterest seem wise. 

H^MON. The Gods, my father, have bestowed 
on man 
The noblest of all treasures — reason. Ne'er 
Would I gainsay the words thou utterest. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 147 

Perchance another could. Yet for thy sake, 

I daily watch what each man says or does, 

Or has to censure. In thy presence none 

Would dare to utter words that please thee not. 

'Tis mine those things to hear in darkness said : 

How all the citizens this virgin mourn. 

How she — the worthiest of her sex — must die 

A wretched death for deeds most glorious, — 

She who, — her brother fallen in the fight, — 

Would suffer not his corpse to lie untombed, 

A prey for vultures and for ravening dogs : 

Is she not worthy of a golden crown ? 

Such are the rumors that in secret move. 

To me, O father, is there nought more dear 

Than thy prosperity ; for to a son 

What greater ornament of glory could 

There be, than honors by his father gained? 

Bear not, I pray thee, this sole sentiment, 

That what thou say'st, and nought beside is right. 

For whoso thinks that he alone is wise, 

Or has a tongue above all other men's. 

Or soul, — such men are empty found, when searched. 

Yet for a man, though wise, 'twere no disgrace 

To learn full many things, and how to yield. 



148 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Thou seest too, the wintry streams, — how trees 
That yield, preserve their boughs, whilst those that 

stand 
Unbending, perish with their very roots ; 
And he that steers a ship, and hauls too tight 
The rope, relaxing nothing, soon will sail 
With benches downward turned. Leave off, I pray. 
Thy angered mood. Permit thyself to change. 
Young though I be, if any wisdom dwells 
In me, I'll say 'twere best for men to be 
In all things filled with knowledge ; yet if not 
(And thus it is not wont to be) it were 
No shame to learn from those that counsel well. 

Chorus. O king, 'tis right that thou shouldst 

learn from him, 
If he say aught with reason: \to Hcemo}i\ and for 

thee 
In turn from him, for both have spoken well. 

Creon. And shall we, at our age, learn from a boy ? 

HiEMON. Nothing that is not just, though I 
be young. 
Works are more worthy of regard than age. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 149 

Creon. a work, indeed, the lawless to revere ! 

H^MON. I would not bid thee reverence the bad. 

Creon. And has not she been seized with that 
disease? 

H^MON. The people of the Theban state say 
"No." 

Creon. And shall my subjects teach me how to 
reign ? 

H^MON. Seest thou not thou hast spoken like a 
youth ? 

Creon. And who, I pray, should rule the Theban 
soil? 

H^MON. That is no state which one man calls 
his own. 



Creon. Does not the state belong to him that 
rules? 



HiEMON. Then in a desert shouldst thou rule 
alone. 

13* 



l^o THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Creon. He fights, it seems, close by a woman's 
side. 

H^MON. If thou art one ! My care is but for 
thee. 

Creon. O sum of baseness, wranglest thou with 
me? 

H^MON. Because I see thy actions are unjust. 

Creon. Unjust? Because I venerate my throne? 

H^MON. Because, in sooth, thou veneratest 
nought. 
While trampling on the honors of the Gods. 

Creon. O mind degenerate and woman's slave ! 

HiEMON, Me wilt thou ne'er the slave of base- 
ness find. 

Creon. And all this speech has been pronounced 
for her. 

H^mon. For thee and me, too, and th' infernal 
Gods. 



THE A NTIG ONE OF SOP HO CL ES. 151 

Creon. In sooth, thou ne'er wilt marry her alive. 

H^MON. Dies she, — her death another will de- 
stroy. 

Creon. And darest thou to come to threats with 
me? 

H^MON. Is 't threats, when I denounce a foolish 
whim ? 

Creon. Thou 'It teach me to thy sorrow, brain- 
less youth. 

H^MON. If thou wert not my sire, I would say 
That thou wert of thy reason quite bereft. 

Creon. Thou slave-thing of a woman, chide me 
not ! 

H^MON. Wilt thou still speak, and speaking, 
nothing hear? 

Creon. Is't so? Then by Olympus, know that 
thou 
Shalt not insult me with impunity. 



152 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Here, slaves, bring forth the wretch that she may- 
die — 
Now, on the spot, before her bridegroom's eyes. 

HiEMON. Before me? No, — nor near me shall 
she die. 
Believe it not. But thou no more my face 
Shalt see, since thou to those that seek thy friends 
To be, dost play a very madman's part. 

\Exit H^MON. 

Chorus. Thy son, O king, in heat of wrath hath 
fled, 
And at his age the mind distressed is dire. 

Creon. Let him than mortal ken more deeply 
scheme, 
He shall not save these maidens from their doom. 

Chorus. And wilt thou truly put them both to 
death ? 

Creon. Not her that touched him not. Thy 
speech is just. 

Chorus. What kind of death hast thou resolved 
for her? 



THE A NTIG ONE OF S OPHO CLES. 153 

Creon. Her steps I '11 lead to where the path is 
lone, 
And shut her, living, in a rocky cave ; 
And lest the town should be defiled, I leave 
Some food for expiation. There, perchance, 
Imploring Pluto, whom alone of all 
The deities she honors, she may gain 
Escape from death ; or else, too late, may learn 
That reverence for Hades is in vain. 



STROPHE. 

Chorus. O ! Love, invincible, — ■ 
O ! I^ove, who fallest upon riches; — 
Who in the night reposeth 
Upon the girl's soft cheek; 
Who goest beyond the seas, and 'midst the rustic 

cots, — 
Nor can immortal escape thee, 
Nor yet ephemeral man. 
He that hath thee is mad. 



154 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Thou to injustice seducest the minds of the just, 

(To their ruin,) 

The kindred strife of man 

Thou stirrest up ; 

For beaming from the eyelids of the beauteous bride, 

Desire, who sits enthroned beside the highest laws, 

Is victorious ; and Venus, 

The invincible Goddess, 

Laughs in sport. 

But now even I am borne beyond the laws, 

Nor can I longer restrain the fountains of my tears. 

For I see Antigone passing 

To the chamber where is room for all. 

Enter Antigone and Guards. 

Ant. Look on me, ye citizens of my fatherland ; 
Treading my last path, 
And beholding for the last time, 
The sunlight; 
And to see it no more : 
For Hades, the gatherer of all to the grave, 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 155 

Is conducting me alive 

To the shores of Acheron ! 

For me no hymeneal hymns have been chanted, 

Nor have I tasted of nuptial joys, 

For I wed Acheron ! 

Chorus. Yet with praise and renown 
Goest thou to the recesses of the dead ; 
Neither smitten by wasting disease, 
Nor struck down by the award of the glaive ; 
But freely, and alone alive among mortals, 
Shalt thou descend to Hades. 

Ant. I have heard how mournfully perished 
Upon the summit of Siphylus 
The Phrygian stranger,* 
Tantalus' daughter. 
The rock shoots, like clinging ivy, 
Overcame her. Her, as goes the story. 
The snow, ever dissolving in showers. 
Never leaves. From her eyes the tear-drops, 
Ever trickling, moisten the mountain summit. 

* Niobe. 



156 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Me, like her, does the Divinity 
Lull to sleep. 

Chorus. But she was a Goddess, and god-engen- 
dered; 
While we are but mortal, and from mortals sprung; 
Therefore to thee, who wert born to die. 
Is it high fame to share the lot of the godlike. 

Ant. Ah me ! I am mocked. Why me, by the 
Gods of my fathers, 

Not dead, but still on earth. 

Dost thou insult ? 

Oh, my city ! Oh, my fellow-citizens, the wealthy ! 

Oh, fountain of Dirce; and thou 

Grove of Thebes, the car-renowned ! 

I call ye to witness. 

How unlamented, and by what an edict, 

I go to the sepulchral dungeon, 

Of an unheard of tomb. 

Woe is me. 

To dwell neither among men, nor among the de- 
parted: — 

Neither with the living, nor with the dead. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 157 

Chorus. In thy audacity, thou hurlest thyself, 
O child, against the lofty throne of Justice ! 
'Tis a penalty thou pay est 
For thy father's crime. 

Ant, Thou hast touched upon a thought. 
To me, brimful of sorrow : — 
The grief for the afflictions of my father. 
And the calamities of our race. 
The illustrious Labdacidae I 
Oh the curse attendant upon the nuptials 
Of my mother ! 

Oh incestuous accouplement of my parents 
From which I, the wretched, sprung! 
With them to sojourn, I depart, 
Unwedded, and foredoomed ! 

O, my brother ! Thou, too, ill-mated ; ^ 

By thy death, hast destroyed me, the living. 

Chorus. Though veneration be piety, 
Yet is the rightful authority 
Not to be transgressed. 

It is thy proud self-will that hath destroyed thee. 
14 



158 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Ant. Unlamented, unbefriended, bridal-songless, 
I, poor virgin, am led on my doomed way. 
No longer may I, the unhappy, 
Behold the sacred eye of the sun. 
No dear one laments my unpitied doom. 

Creon. And know ye not, that none would cease 
from tears. 
If dirges might avail death to avert ? 
Why haste ye not to guide her to her tomb: — 
The caverned sepulchre, by me decreed? 
Whether 'tis fated that she die, or live. 
In such a dwelling, is not ours to heed. 
For we are free from stain in this regard, — 
Therefore may she no longer dwell on earth. 

Ant. O grave! O bridal chamber! Vaulted 
gloom ! 
Thou must for aye contain me ; for I go 
To join my own ; whom slaughtered, Proserpine 
In troops hath gathered in. Of these, the last, 
And by a fate, of all most wretched, I 
Descend before my time ! Yet as I go, 
The hope pervades me, that I shall arrive, 



THE A NTIG ONE OF SOPHO CL ES. 159 

Dear to my father ; — and most dear to thee, 

My mother; and how dear to thee, O brother! 

For thee, with my own hands, I washed, when dead; 

And decked thee out with fitting burial rites ; — 

With what reward ! Yet by the just, my deed 

Is honored. Not e'en for a husband; — nay, 

Were I a mother, not e'en for my children. 

Had I done this, against the public voice. 

— Widowed, I might have wed another spouse. 

— Childless, I might have born another child. 

But now, my parents gathered to the grave. 

Ne'er can I name another brother mine. 

Therefore, my honored brother, I dared all 

For thee; and am, by Creon, judged to die. 

For this he seized me; and for this, by force 

Of hands, I 'm led away. — I, who have ne'er 

Heard nuptial lay, nor known the marriage couch, 

Nor reared me children. I, unhappy maid, 

Forsaken by my friends, go down, alive, 

To subterranean abodes of death ! 

What God have I offended? Wretched me; — 

What God shall I invoke? What ally call? 

— Since piety hath brought the punishment 



l6o THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Of sin upon me ! If the Gods approve 
My fate, then will I own that I've transgressed. 
If these be in the wrong, still greater ills. 
Perchance, than those I suffer may be theirs ! 

Chorus. 'Tis the whirlwind of violence still 
That possesses thy soul. 

Creon. Tears shall come to the laggers 
Who conduct thee, because of their sloth. 

Ant. Oh me ! Close on my death 
Comes that threat. 

Creon. I give thee no ground of hope. 
All shall be brought to fulfilment, as I decreed. 

Ant. O native city of the Theban land ! 

Gods of my forefathers ! 

1 am hurried away and may no longer tarry. 
Behold me, ye Theban rulers, — 

What I, the last remnant of the royal line endure, 
And from what men. 
Because I revere my duty. 

\^Exit Antigone and Guards. 



THE ANTIGONE OE SOPHOCLES. i6i 



STROPHE I. 

Chorus. The form of Danae too 
Forwent the light of heaven for brass-girt halls, 
And in her tomb-like chamber felt confinement's 

yoke, 
And yet, O child, was honored in her race. 
For she was the custodian of the golden-showering 

seed of Jove. 
Dread is the power of Fate. 
Nor can tempest, nor can war, 
Nor towers, nor swarthy ships 
That cleave the brine, escape. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

To that same yoke was bowed 

The fiery son of Dryas, (king of the Edonians,) 

By Bacchus, for his angry moods, shut up 

In rocky bonds. 

There he distils the fury dread and ever fresh of 

madness ; 
But has learned how with railing tongue 

14* 



1 62 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

In his phrenzy he had attacked e'en the Gods: 
For he had suppressed the inspired virgins 
And the mystic fire, 
And had angered the harmonious Muses. 

STROPHE 11. 

The shores of Bosphorus and Thracian Sahnydessus, 

(By the Cyanean depths of the double sea, 

Where Mars dwells near the city,) 

Saw the accursed wound, 

(Bringing blindness,) 

Inflicted upon the two sons of Phineas by a fierce 

stepmother, 
— A dark wound upon their fury-driven orbs, 
Inflicted with the points of spears and of spindles, 
By blood-stained hands. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

And they in misery pining away. 

Lamented the woes of their mother, 

Who bore the offspring of an ill-fated marriage ; 

For she was of the ancient Erecthean line — 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOniOCLES. 163 

A daughter of Boreas, 

(Who with courser's speed bounds over the steep 

mountains,) 
— A child of the Gods, 
She was nursed in far-off caves amidst the storms of 

her father. 
Yet even upon her, O child, did the eternal Fates 

lay grasp. 

Eftter TiRESiAS, guided by a boy. 

TiRESiAS. Princes of Thebes, we by a common 
path 
Are hither come, and one has seen for both, 
For blind men journey only by a guide. 

Creon. What news hast thou, my old Tiresias? 

TiRESiAS. I'll tell thee, and do thou the seer obey. 

Creon. It is my wont t' obey the prophet's voice. 

Tiresias. And thus the helm of state hast guided 
well. 

Creon. Advantage great I own I thus have gained. 



1 64 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

TiRESiAS. Yet now thou walkest on the edge of 
fate. 

Creon. What wouldst thou say? I shudder at 
thy voice. 

TiRESiAS. Thou 'It know as I the indications of 
My art unfold. For sitting, as my wont, 
Upon my seat of augury, I heard 
An unfamiliar sound of birds, that tore 
The air with savage and ill-omened rage; 
And thus I knew that they with bloody claws 
Were rending each the other, for the whirr 
Of wings denoted this. Then, filled with dread, 
I quickly on the blazing altars tried 
My divination; yet no flame would rise 
From out the sacrifices, but a steam 
Corrupt kept oozing from the haunches on 
The ashes, with a smoky sputtering. 
The gall went up in air, and from the fat. 
That wrapped them round, the thigh bones fell and 

lay. 
Such death-like tidings of mysterious rites 
Were told me by this boy, who is my guide, 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 165 

As I the guide of others. Thus the state 

Is hurt by thy self-will, and all our hearths 

And altars are polluted by the feasts 

Of dogs and vultures on the luckless corpse 

Of fallen Polynices, and the Gods 

No more our sacrificial prayers accept. 

Propitious note no more does bird send forth. 

They all are gorged with human blood. My son, 

These things consider; for to err is but 

The common lot of all, and yet the man, 

Who having fallen into wrong, is cured. 

No more is reckless or infatuate ; 

But self-will bears the charge of stubbornness. 

Yield to the dead, and wound no more the corpse. 

What valor can there be the slain to smite? 

I am thy friend and now advise thee well, 

And truth from prudent counsellors to learn 

Is pleasing, if advantage be its fruit. 

Creon. Old man, ye all, like archers at a mark, 
Discharge your shafts at me ; but with the arts 
Of divination I am not untried 
By you, nor is this all. By my own kin 
Long since have I been made a thing of trade. 



1 6 6 THE A NTIG ONE OF SOPIIO CL ES. 

Your traffic still pursue, and if you can, 
Hoard up the shining dross of Sardis, with 
The gold of Ind. Him shall ye ne'er enclose 
In tomb. — No — not if eagles sent by Jove 
Should fasten on his corpse to bear aloft 
Unto their master's throne, would I, in dread 
Of desecration, let you bury him. 
For well I know that man could ne'er pollute 
The Gods. But aged seer, full many fall 
Disgraceful falls, — e'en those who lack not wit, — 
When they for gain would plead an evil cause. 

TiRESiAS. Alas, does no man know, — no man 
reflect? 

Creon. What pratest thou? What saying trite is 
this? 

TiRESiAS. By how much, wisdom is the greatest 
boon. 

Creon. As much as folly is the greatest ill. 

TiRESiAS. Thou art by nature filled with that 
disease. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 167 

Creon. a seer I ne'er would treat with disrespect. 

TiRESiAS. And yet this dost thou — giving me the 
lie. 

Creon. The race of seers is ever fond of gold. 

TiRESiAS. The race of tyrants love the basest 
gain. 

Creon. Know'st thou, thou sj^eakest this to those 
that rule? 

TiRESiAS. I know it. Thanks to me, thou rulest 
now. 

Creon. Thou art a skilful seer, but most unjust. 

TiRESiAS. The secrets that have lain unmoved 
within 
My breast, at last, thou 'It rouse me to narrate. 

Creon. Then move them. Only speak not thou 
for gain. 

Tiresias. To thee I seem already thus to speak. 

Creon. My resolution thou shalt never sell. 



1 68 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

TiRESiAS. Then know thou for a certainty, that 
thou 
Not many settings of the circling sun 
Shalt see, ere thou, in recompense for one 
That died, shalt give thy son, — dead for the dead ! 
For thou hast most dishonoringly lodged 
A living being in the sepulchre, — 
Sending below the earth a human soul. 
Again ! Another from his place beside 
The Gods of Hades thou hast kept, and left 
His wretched corpse unhallowed and untombed. 
'Twas not thy right, — no, nor the right of Gods 
Above. 'Twas but a deed of violence. 
For this the Furies of the realms below 
And those of heaven, that penal vengeance work, 
Are now in waiting to ensnare thee fast 
In like misfortunes. Mark if now I speak 
These things for lucre. Yet a little while 
And in thy palace men shall mourn, and wails 
Be heard of women. In fell enmity 
Shall all the states be stirred whose mangled dead. 
Or birds or dogs or beasts of prey have torn. 
Sending into the altar-hallowed town 
Polluting stenches. Such unerring shafts 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 169 

Have I in anger, (for thou vexest me,) 
Shot at thee like an archer. Ne'er their grief 
Shalt thou escape. And now, O boy, conduct 
Me home, and let him vent his rage on men 
Of younger years, and be of better mind. 

Chorus. The man, O king, has left, foretelling 
woes ; 
And well I know, since first my hair from black 
To gray began to turn, that never word 
Of his predictions to our state hath failed. 

Creon. I know it, too, and dread distracts my 
mind. 
To yield were hard ; and yet should I resist, 
A danger stalks abroad of woes from wrath. 

Chorus. Menseceus' son, thou needest counsels 
wise. 

Creon. What must I do ? Speak and I will obey. 

Chorus. Go and release the virgin from her 
tomb. 
And find a grave for him that lies exposed. 

15 



lyo THE ANTIGONE OE "SOPHOCLES. 

Creon. Is this thy counsel? Dost thou bid me 
yield? 

Chorus. At once, O king, for vengeance swift of 
foot 
From heaven, cuts down the men of wicked mind. 

Creon. Ah me ! 'Tis hard, and yet I must 
submit, 
For who could fight against Necessity. 

Chorus. Go and do this thyself, nor others trust. 

Creon. E'en as I am, I'll go. Attendants all, — 
Both here and absent, haste. Take axes in 
Your hands, and seek the spot. 'Tis plain to sight. 
And since my purpose thus is altered, I 
Who bound, will liberate her; for I fear 
'Twere best to die, maintaining ancient laws. 

STROPHE I. 

Chorus. O thou of many names,* 
The glory of Cadmea's nymph, 

* Bacchus. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

And son of deeply-thundering Jupiter, 

Who rulest famed Italia, 

And in the Eleusinian vales, 

Presidest Ceres' rites, (that all may share:) 

O Bacchus, who dwellest in Thebes, 

(The Bacchant's mother,) 

Near to Ismene's meandering stream 

And on the seed of the ferocious dragon; 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

Thee the smoke that bursts to flame 

Over the double peak, beholds. 

Where Corycian Nymphs in order move. 

And where Castalia's fountain flows. 

Thee the ivy-covered steeps 

Of Nysian mountains, 

And verdant viny cape acclaim, 

(While words immortal waft the Evoes,) 

To reign the guardian 

Of all the streets of Thebes. 



171 



1 7 2 THE A N TIG ONE OF S OP I/O CL ES. 



STROPHE II. 

Above all cities, thou, 

With thy thunder-stricken mother, 

Dost honor Thebes. 

And now, that with her people 

The city is distracted, 

Come thou across the Parnassian slope 

Or loud-resounding strait, 

With purifying foot. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

O choragus of the stars, 

That flame suspire : 

Thou leader of night-voices, — 

O child of Jupiter, 

Come forth with Naxian Thyads, 

Thy ministers. 

Who in the phrenzy of the night-long dance. 

Salute thee. Lord laccus. 

Enter Messenger. 
Mess. Ye dwellers in the homes of Cadmus and 
Of Amphion. There is no state of life 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 173 

That I should praise or blame, for Fortune still 

Is raising up, and still is casting down, 

Alike the prosperous and unprosperous man. 

A mortal's destined lot can none foretell, 

For Creon, erst methought, was one whom all 

Might envy, for he saved the Theban soil 

From warlike foes, and gained the sovereignty 

Which he did wield ; and with a noble race 

Of children prospered. Now, all this is gone ; 

And when to any man the joys of life 

Are lost and gone, I count not that he lives. 

To me he seems but like a breathless corpse ; 

And grant that he be rich, — well stored his house, — 

Aye, let him bear the garb of royalty, — 

Yet if to him there be not joy, the rest 

I would not weigh against true pleasure's charm, 

Or purchase with the shadow of a smoke. 

Chorus. Upon our royal line bring'st thou new 
woes ? 

Mess. Dead ! and the living guilty of their 
deaths ! 

15* 



174 THE ANTIGONE OE SOPHOCLES. 

Chorus. Who slew them? Who is dead? I 
charge thee, speak ! 

Mess. Haemon has perished, — and by violence. 

Chorus. How died he, — by his own, or father's 
hand? 

Mess. By his own hand, in rage against his sire. 

Chorus. O prophet, thou hast truly prophesied. 

Mess. Since thus it stands, speak we of other 
things. 

Chorus. And lo, at hand, behold Eurydice, 
King Creon's wretched queen. Comes she by chance, 
From out the palace, — or the news has heard? 

Enter Eurydice. 

Eurydice. Ye citizens, what rumor did I hear 
As I was walking unto Pallas' fane. 
Her suppliant? Just as the bolts I drew 
Of yonder gate, a voice of evil near 
Assailed my ear ; and terror-stunned, in swoon 
I backward sank into my handmaid's arms. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 175 

But speak again, — whate'er the sorrow be. 
By suffering long tried, I'll bear the news. 

Mess. I, my dear mistress, will inform thee all, 
And will omit no word, for I was there. 
For why should I aught mitigate to thee 
Of that which thou wilt know too soon, and thus 
Be found a liar? Truth is ever right. 
Thy husband's steps I followed to the plain's 
Extremity, where yet unburied lay 
The corpse of Polynices. Cruel sight, — 
The dogs had torn it. We to Pluto then. 
And Hecate, (that guards the roads,) did pray 
To look with favor on our enterprise. 
And having, with lavation sacred, bathed 
What yet remained of him, we burnt the corpse 
With fresh-plucked twigs, and heaped a lofty mound 
Of his own native earth above him. Next 
We sought the rocky cavern of the maid — 
Her bridal-house of death ; and some one heard 
A far-off sound of lamentations loud 
From that unconsecrated chamber. He 
Runs back to tell it our master, Creon. 
To Creon' s ear, as he approaches, comes 
A sound confused of wailings dolorous. 



1^6 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Then he in grief cries out: '^ O wretched me ! 

Am I a prophet? Do I wend to-day 

The most ill-fated way man ever trod? 

My son's voice thrills me through. Quick, quick — 

with speed, 
Attendants to the tomb, — there where a crevice 

gapes,— 
Haste to the cavern's mouth, and tell me truth, 
If I hear Haemon's voice, or if the Gods 
Deceive me." Then, as our sad master bade. 
We gazed into the sepulchre, and in 
Its furthest corner saw her hanging, dead, — 
A twisted linen cord around her neck. 
And jiim beside her lying. Round her form 
His arms were flung, and ever there he mourned 
His bride's unhappy fate beneath the earth — 
His father's deed, and that sad nuptial bed. 
But when the father saw his son he groaned. 
And thus himself in piteous tones reproached : 
''Ah, wretched man, what hast thou done? What 

mind 
Was thine? In what calamity art thou 
Destroyed?" But Haemon, glaring on him with 
Disdainful eyes, spits in his face; and swift, — 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 177 

Without a word, — draws forth his two-edged sword. 

The father flies, and the ill-fated son 

In anger drives through his own side the blade ) 

And living still, embraces her he loved. 

With feeble arm ; and panting, spurts up drops 

Of blood upon her snowy cheek, — and dead 

Lies round the dead. In Hades thus he gained, 

Unhappy wight, his nuptials, bearing proof 

That rashness is the greatest bane of man. 

{During the recital, Eurydice steals away 
unperceived. 

Chorus. What shall this signify? The queen has 
gone 
Without a single word, or good or bad. 

Mess. And I too wonder, yet I live in hope 
That having thus her son's destruction learned, 
She will not vent her grief before the world, 
But under her own roof convene her maids 
To mourn a dirge; for she is not so reft 
Of reason as to sacrifice her life. 



1 78 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Chorus. This I know not; yet silence deep, to 
me 
Portends much harm, and idle clamor nought. 

Mess. Into the house then, and acquaint ourselves 
Whether her brooding mind may not conceal 
Some hidden purpose; for thou sayest well; — 
There 's something menacing in silence deep. 

\_Exit Messenger. 

Chorus. And now see the monarch approaching. 
He bears in his arms an illustrious token — 
A destruction, (if thus I might speak,) of another: 
Yet he was its culpable author and cause. 

Enter Creon, with the corpse of H^emon in his arms. 

Creon. Woe to the deadly, the irreparable errors 
Of an unbending mind ! 
O ye that look upon 
The kindred murderer and the slain. — 
Woe is me for my death-deserving purpose ! 
O son, — young, in thy young fate, 
Alas ! alas ! 

Thou hast died ! Thou art gone, 
By my rashness, — not thi?ie. 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. i^y 

Chorus. Ah me ! too late thou hast the right 
discerned. 

Creon. Woe is me ! 
In sorrow I've learned. On my head 
Did the Deity strike, — aye, then did he strike 
With a powerful impulse, that drove me to furious 

ways, 
(Woe is me !) and has shattered my joy to be stamped 

under foot ! 
Grief! grief! O the labors of mortals — the laborious 

labors ! 

Enter Messenger, from within. 

Mess. O king that hast, and further must receive — 
Who bearest m thy hands this horror, yet 
Must soon another in thy house discern. 



^ Creon. But what? Are greater sorrows yet in 
store? 



Mess. Thy wife, fond mother of the slain, is dead, 
(Unhappy she,) by wounds but freshly given. 

Creon. Woe ! woe ! Port of the dead that knows 
not expiation ! 



i«o 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 



Why hast thou destroyed me? 

O messenger of ill, 

What tidings dost thou bring? 

Alas, thou slayest a dead man again. 

What say' St thou, young man? What news dost thou 

bring ? 
Woe ! woe ! 

That the slaughter of my wife must be added 
To the fate of my son. 

Chorus. Thou canst behold it. 'Tis no more 
within. 

The corpse of Eurydice is brought in. 

Creon. Ah me ! 
Wretch that I am, a second woe I see ! 
What doom now waits for me? For me, what doom? 
Here in my arms I bear my murdered son : 
And there, before me, lies another corpse. 
Woe ! woe ! Unhappy mother ! Woe ! My child ! 

Mess. For she around the altar lay, self-stabbed 
With sudden wound, and closed her darkening eyes 
Bewailing the illustrious couch of dead 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. jgi 

Megareus, and him, the son that's here, 
And imprecating baleful doom on thee. 

Creon. Ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! 
I shudder with fright ! Why does not some hand 
Stab me dead with a two-edged blade? 
Miserable me ! Woe ! woe ! 
I am involved in terrible woe. 

Mess. At least, she charged thee, dying, with the 
guilt 
As well of thy son's death, as of her own. 

■ Creon. But how and by what slaug titer did she 
die? 

Mess. She pierced with her own hand her breast, 
when she 
The thrilling sorrow of her dead son learned. 

Creon. O me ! O me ! The guilt is mine. 
No other mortal can share the blame. 
'Twas I ! 'Twas I — the wretch that slew thee. 
I, — 'tis truth ! Attendants, ho ! 
Haste ye to speed me out of the way. 
Who am but nothing ! 
i6 



1 82 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 

Chorus. Thou counsel'st gain, if gain there be 
in woe, 
For woes the briefest, now at least, were best. 

Creon. Let it come ! Let it come ! 
The end of my doom, — the best that can be of my 

days — 
Now let it appear ! Let it come ! Let it come ! 
May I never another day see ! 

Chorus. These things are future. For the pre- 
sent, speak 
What we must do. The others are in charge. 

Creon. I've prayed for what I ardently desire. 

Chorus. Pray thou for nothing, since to mortal 
man 
There is no refuge from predestined doom. 

Creon. Lead out of the way the shadow that erst 

was a man — 
Who unwittingly slew thee, O son, and thee, O my 

wife. 
Ah me, the unfortunate, where shall I turn. 
Or on which of the two shall I look? 



THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. 183 

For all things perverse on my hands — on my head 
Has a doom untoward brought down. 

\_Exit Creon. 

Chorus. Wisdom by far is the surest reliance for 
happiness, 
Ever in all that pertains to the Deities. 
May we be free from irreverence. 
Vaunts of the proud 
That have paid in affliction 
Their penalty, 
Teach to the aged that wisdom is best. 




